


werewolves of london

by Gorgeous Nerd (gorgeousnerd)



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Family, Gender Identity, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Other, Sexual Orientation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:00:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6298219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/pseuds/Gorgeous%20Nerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There once was a boy born to a wolf. There once was a wolf born to a woman.</i>
</p><p>Harry lives in a world of middle ground: neither fully human nor fully wolf, used to and uncomfortable with his fame, possibly neither man nor woman (maybe both, maybe a third option). He hits it off with Nick immediately when they meet, and Nick seems to have everything Harry didn't know Harry could want: the ability to shift, a balance of fame and personal life, and comfort with an identity that his family doesn't have or understand. Harry falls for Nick, but how can they forge a life together if Harry doesn't entirely know who he is?</p><p>This is the story of when boy and wolf meet, the people who raise them, and about the journey to understand yourself and what you really want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Written for:** One Direction Big Bang, Round Four! Thanks to the mods for all their work.
> 
>  **Art by:** [slightlytotheleft](http://slightlytotheleft.tumblr.com). I loved working with you, bb!
> 
>  **Content notes:** There's some insensitivity/bigotry about gender/sexual identity in the story from characters (neither Harry nor Nick) and a decent amount of alcohol. 
> 
> This is a story about personal identity and isn't meant to represent groups as a whole. I lifted some parts directly from my personal experiences as a DFAB genderqueer/sexually queer person but also changed details both to fit the specific characters and to fictionalize a little more. I also made this somewhat canon-compliant but took liberties wherever I felt like it. Also, as always, this is a fictional story based on public personas; the families in particular came more from my head than reality.
> 
>  **Thanks to:** onthehill as always for Britpicking/betaing (and in a super short span of time), mizowithlizo for all the resource hunting, and annemaris for finding some missing words. Anything incorrect that's left in the story is all me. Thanks also to my Twitter friends for liking my ~process tweets, and everyone irl who put up with me ducking away to finish this.
> 
>  **Also:** "Werewolves of London"'s lyrics don't fit with my story, but I was listening to a lot of [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLlpu341PdA) while I was outlining (alcohol cw - it's a vodka commercial), so that's where the title comes from.

_There once was a boy born to a wolf._

_He was the wolf's second offspring; the first, still a very small pup, was nearby with her grandmother. The wolf shouldn't have been worried. The first birth had been perfect, her pup was perfect, and there had been no reason, going in, to think the second child or birth would be otherwise._

_But she was birthing in her human form, which was harder than as a wolf. She had to. She hadn't been able to wear her wolf form during the pregnancy, and it hadn't been that way with her first child. She'd spent those nine months solid on her paws, and the birth had been quick and easy._

_It wasn't common for a child of two wolves to only have the human form. But it did happen, and parents usually knew by the third month. It hadn't stopped the wolf from hoping it was wrong. There were late bloomers. Her son could still run with her on the moons._

_All thoughts went away as she went through the human phases of birth. She was still at home - even those with only human skins had extra immunity that true humans didn't - and she stayed in her denning room for all of it, even though it lasted almost a full day. She felt better there. More in control._

_The baby came out healthy in the end. Pink and wriggly and screaming with a human voice, but healthy. He rooted for his mother's breast, and she gave it to him; her first had nursed as a human sometimes, so at least that part wasn't strange. But when he finished his first feed, and she switched skins - feeling the most at home that she had in some six months - he didn't follow suit. He was the same pink he had been from the beginning._

_The wolf still curled around him to keep him warm and licked the birthing fluids from his skin._

_After all, he was her son._

-

Harry didn't have much practical knowledge of the reality-show process when he went on X Factor, but there had been one thing he'd known well.

"You won't be seeing many wolves there," Mum had told him when they'd first figured out he'd made it past bootcamp, hugging him to her with a fierceness that really wasn't necessary. Harry liked the feeling, though. "Honestly, it wouldn't be surprising if you don't see any."

Harry had been in limited-wolf populations before. The Cox pack didn't have their own school, so Harry went with mixed populations, and the family went on holiday in human spaces sometimes. But he always went home to Mum and Gemma (and Robin and sometimes, in a pinch, Dad). Their scents were as much a part of Harry as his curly hair or his green eyes. Just bootcamp had felt wrong.

And then he was put into a group. All humans. (Harry had known before they'd all come to rehearse in the bungalow that they were human-only, but watching them run about in the fields with their clumsy, human legs would have told him everything.) (Of course, Harry couldn't talk when it came to clumsiness, all things considered.)

At worst, he'd go to judges' houses with them. At best...well, he'd be too busy on the show to overthink it at first, and if more happened, he would probably be used to it.

He had still worried a bit. Mum had smelled it on him and said, as comforting as ever, "You can do this. I'll be here no matter what."

If Harry hadn't wanted to sing more than almost anything, he might not have gone. But there were parts of him that he couldn't change even if he wanted to, and performing for people was one of those. Even if it felt strange to leave his pack behind.

It was time to see how humans lived.

-

_There once was a wolf born to a woman._

_The woman had known, vaguely, that she'd had wolves in her distant ancestry, and her husband had grumbled something along the same lines early in the relationship, but all the screening questions at the doctor's asked for grandparents, and the doctor herself had only asked face-to-face about great-grandparents. The woman had answered honestly. It wasn't that she'd tried to be deceitful. Who thought of vague family legends about wolves in the Middle Ages every day? All the woman's children had, so far, been born as human as she._

_Besides, wolf sorts of things usually turned up on scans, even the standard ones. Maybe the medical professionals hadn't known to look, but the bigger signs were hard to miss, and regular scans hadn't revealed a thing._

_The birth went as births went, in that it was bloody and tiring. The woman made it through all right, and her new son was placed in her arms without difficulty._

_And then the baby shrunk and grew black fur in the blink of an eye._

_The nurse above the woman cried out in shock. The woman was...a bit surprised, to be sure, but her grip never faltered. The old family legends, too late to be of much use, floated into her head as her husband sank wearily into a chair nearby, grumbling, yet again, about the ones in his own family tree._

_They'd had to switch to wolf formula instead of breastfeeding, but the woman never shirked in her feedings, and she cared for the wolf as much as she cared for the boy who shared his body._

_After all, he was her son._

-

Harry knew there was a wolf in the room at the GQ Awards before he knew anything else. A wolf, singular. 

Wolves weren't as rare in the entertainment industry as his mum had seemed to think, but they tended to clump. Bands that had wolves almost always had plural wolves. (One Direction, formed as it had been, didn't count.) Single celebrities, like solo artists or actors, would bring friends and families in their entourage. Harry waited a bit to see if more appeared, but the sense never changed.

Needle in a haystack? Single wolf in an industry party.

Harry moved through the room, saying hello to the friends he'd already made and introducing himself to anyone who looked friendly. He couldn't pick out the wolf by sight, but no one could. Wolves in human form looked like regular humans, and everyone at the awards was primped and polished, Harry included. One Direction had special people assigned to the task of making him look acceptable, and although Harry had been at this for around a year at that point, getting styled reminded him more of being licked by Mum as a pup than of doing actual work. It was strange, the things people were paid for.

It was only when he found his table, and Harry laid his eyes on Nick Grimshaw, BBC Radio 1 DJ extraordinaire, that he found the wolf.

Nick had been talking to Liam, who was sat next to him, but he'd noticed Harry was looking, winked a bit, and said, "Hiya, One Direction."

No one else in One Direction was paying attention; Liam had joined Louis's conversation with James Cordon, Zayn was on his phone, and Niall was off...somewhere. There was a chair free next to Nick, and Harry slid in.

"Hello, Nick Grimshaw." Harry grinned. "I'm only one-fifth of One Direction, so you should probably just call me—"

"Harold Styles?"

Harry groaned. "Harry. Not Harold."

Nick affected an innocent look. He seemed to know that Harry was joking...and, if he had a wolf's nose, that would probably back up any hunches. "Loved you on X Factor."

"So you actually watched?"

"You sound surprised."

Harry shrugged. "Wouldn't have thought you knew my name at all. You don't generally play my sort of music."

"Bit nasty, innit?" Nick laughed. "Don't worry. Even in my dark corner of Radio 1, One Direction has muscled their way in. But I also watch X Factor every year. Might have even spared a vote or two for you lads."

"Oh. Nice of you to go out of your way."

"I thought so."

Nick leaned in closer. Harry could feel heat radiating off him, another tell-tale sign of a wolf. It was lucky that Harry's gaze was a bit intense naturally because the urge to bask in Nick's heat with his eyes closed was almost irresistible. It had been too long since he'd had that kind of contact.

"You, young Styles," Nick said quietly, "know who I am as well. So you're not just playing JLS CDs in your bedroom at your mum's."

Harry hummed. "No, I've got more...natural sounds to hear back home."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Ooh. The popstar's a bit naughty."

It was Harry's turn to drop his voice and lean closer. "I was talking about my pack."

" _Oh._ " Nick pulled back. "It's like that, then? But your smell...I can't sort it out."

It wasn't the first time Harry had heard that sort of thing, and normally it would bother him, but...well, strange wolves usually brought up Harry's scent without wolf talk coming up first in conversation. (If Harry had a pound for every time someone opened the chat that way, lord.) Nick seemed more curious than ready to knock Harry down a peg or two. It was a nice change.

"It's a mystery," Harry said, a smile spreading on his face. "You get to solve it."

Nick raised his eyebrows, obviously pleased. "Give me your number, and I'll give you my guesses as I come up with them."

Harry's smile widened. That seemed like an excellent idea.

-

_The boy with the wolf mother didn't know any different for a very long time._

_He slept with the pack on den nights, spurning blankets for the warm fur of his family and using their bellies as pillows. He ran with them on the full moon nights; just because he couldn't lose his human shape didn't mean he didn't have a bit of extra speed, or the human-form smell of a wolf. He wasn't quite human, but he wasn't exactly wolf, either._

_When he was old enough to choose for himself, he sat out the occasional moon run, but he always spent time basking under its glow. Mum had explained a bit about what he was, although he'd known, even then, that she was holding back parts. He'd also known that the moon wouldn't change him, no matter the legends._

_Actually, the legends had gone the other way. The story of wolf origins Mum told of a civilization that had wanted to build and talk with voices instead of howls, so the moon changed them to speak with the hairless from further south, and they'd married their lines together._

_There had been nothing about curious humans wanting to howl._

_There was nothing about a boy, mostly happy, wishing things could be just a bit different, and the moon hearing his wish._

-

When Nick formed his London pack, he never would have thought a seventeen-year-old popstar would ever be part of it.

Not that Nick was rigid where such things were concerned. Almost all of his pack was fully human, and if another wolf told him that Aimee or Colette or Daisy couldn't be his _actual_ pack, they could go fuck themselves, honestly. He'd had pack members come and go as well. Life was too fluid and short for a silly thing like rules.

(Okay, okay, Nick knew that many rules had their proper place. The rules that made sure he got his pay cheque regularly? No complaints. Rules that tried to dictate his life without knowing how he lived it? Rubbish. He had no time for them.)

But Harry. Fuck, Nick hadn't known there was a Harry-shaped hole in his life until Harry had filled it. Even when he was off touring, like he had been quite a bit that first autumn, Harry made sure to stay in touch with Nick and make snide little comments about the show and send him video links. Nick loved every ridiculous message Harry sent. He could picture Harry staring intently at his phone, shutting away the world, and giving Nick the little pieces of his life that everyone else was so eager to claim.

It seemed natural to have Harry over to Nick's parents' for Christmas and for Nick to meet Harry's mum.

Meeting Anne Cox answered the question Harry had avoided since they'd met. Nick had let it lie at first; Harry was playful about his odd, mostly-wolfish scent, but Nick sensed something a bit tricky there that Harry wasn't saying. After a week of joking, Nick had told Harry that he was "good at listening; do it for a living, me" as a way of saying he was there if Harry wanted to tell him, and Nick hadn't brought it up since. Wasn't his business, in the end. 

Anne appeared - with Robin and Gemma in tow - to a pre-Christmas dinner in Manchester. Plans hadn't quite worked out for Harry to go to Holmes Chapel, and since he was going to stay with Nick on the actual day, an early dinner seemed the next best thing. Aimee was around as well since she didn't want to go back to the States for the holiday.

Introductions happened, food, drink...Nick was mostly happy his parents were behaving, and that Anne and Gemma didn't seem to hate Nick. Being around proper wolves always made Nick a bit nervous - and they definitely smelled proper wolfish, even if their mannerisms were all human - but Anne talked about how much she enjoyed the show and asked Nick how many One Direction shows he'd seen, and he'd asked her about her X Factor experiences and what she was up to when she wasn't parenting a popstar, and he asked Gemma what she was studying at uni, and it was generally quite nice.

Between the main course and dessert, Nick excused himself for a smoke. It was drizzling a bit outside, but not too bad, and there was only a bit of the dirty snow from last weekend in the car park. Nick lit up in his car with the front doors open and enjoyed the burn of smoke in his lungs.

"Mind if I join you?"

It was only because of Nick's superior wolf reflexes that he didn't drop his cigarette with his surprised twitch. "Um, no," he said, once he'd recovered. He fumbled for his box of cigarettes. "You want...?"

Anne took the passenger seat, legs politely angled to keep her feet out of the car. "Oh no, thank you," she said, waving him off. "Just wanted to talk for a bit."

Uh oh. Harry hadn't given off any indication of a homophobic mum, but this had the air of a _pervert my son and you will answer to me_ moment. Nick had had blessedly few of those yet, and he definitely didn't want to start here.

"Oh," Nick said. "Um. Is something wrong?"

"No. I just...well, this isn't any of my business. But Harry is my son, and...you don't mind a personal question, do you?"

"Depends on the question," he said slowly. "But generally, no."

Anne laughed. "Fair enough. Have you offered to change my son?"

"Change?" Nick said before he thought about it. "Wait. He's not..."

"Oh, _shit_." She covered her mouth with her hands, and Nick openly gaped at her. After a moment, she lowered them again so she could speak. "He didn't tell you?"

Nick's head spun. Anne was definitely a wolf, and so was Gemma, but Harry...

"Tell me what?" he asked.

"I could have sworn he'd told you. I'm sorry."

"No!" Nick crushed his cigarette in his ash tray. "This isn't going to change how I see him, if that's what you're worried about. I just would have thought..."

Anne shook her head. "I've really stuck my foot in. You...you won't stop being friends with him?"

The thought made something in Nick's chest hurt. "No, of course not."

Anne nodded once, shook her head immediately after, and cleared out of the car.

-

The car ride back to Nick's parents' wasn't terrible, but it _was_ quiet. Aimee was sat in the back, looking pointedly between Nick and Harry, but when she met Nick's pleading gaze in the mirror, she didn't do more than lip sync with the radio. There was a good reason Aimee was one of his best mates. She also excused herself to bed at the same time as Nick's parents when they were back at the house, giving Nick a You'd Better Tell Me Everything Later look as she did, and Nick nodded once, even if he had no intention of doing so if Harry wanted things kept quiet. Nick respected privacy, and he was good at giving others just enough to get them to back off.

He grabbed himself a beer when Harry was sat at the dinner table. When he gestured at it, asking silently if Harry wanted a drink of his own, Harry shook his head.

"So," Nick said. Witty opener, but sometimes, less was more.

Harry huffed a laugh. "So."

"Your mum told you what she told me?"

"In between her attempt at holding back tears, yes." Harry shook his head, but it was fond. "She's not Liam's mum, to be fair. Karen cries over the littlest thing."

"What a love," Nick said. He flinched. Sounded like his nan. "So, uh. Mind if I ask you about it?"

"I've been waiting for you to ask since the beginning."

"Didn't think it was my business."

"You're the first wolf I've met who thought that way." Harry leaned back. He seemed taller than when Nick had met him, and Nick wasn't sure if it was the way his legs were stretched or if he really was growing. "I have to admit something as well."

"What's that?"

"I've wanted to ask about you."

Nick grinned. "Show me yours, and I'll show you mine?"

Harry leered back. There was no other way to put it. "Something like that."

-

_The wolf with the human mother knew things were different straight away._

_It wasn't that his mother didn't try. She did, in her way. More than his dad, although he'd had his reasons. But she didn't know what the wolf needed on the moons, she didn't know how to cuddle him after he started primary school, and she just didn't know how to talk to other wolves anymore than any other human did. She knew that he was suffocating, and maybe that was the worst part, that the wolf could see her worry and see her know that she just couldn't keep up._

_The wolf was younger than he should have been when he finally started sneaking away to the city to find other wolves. It could have gone wrong, but, luckily, it didn't; the few wolves at his school didn't steer him wrong. His parents worried, and the first time they caught him sneaking in the house, some three months after he started going to regular full moons at the football pitches in the city, he was punished._

_The wolf kept going to the moon gatherings, but it never came up again._

-

It was a bit cloudy the following month in London, when Harry ran with Nick on the full moon for the first time.

Well. It was January, but it had only been a fortnight or so since Christmas and Nick had found out that Harry wasn't a proper wolf. Honestly, Mum had done him a favour. Harry hadn't known how to bring it up. He hadn't known he _could_ bring it up. Harry had thought Nick might want nothing to do with him in the future. It had happened with wolves before.

But there had been something different about Nick from the start as well, and Nick, with his laddy beer, had told Harry what he should have realised at dinner.

"My mum and dad aren't wolves," Nick had said, pretending to be casual even though his hands were shaking a bit. Harry had watched the beer slosh in the bottle. "I think it ended up in a medical journal. I don't put 'extremely recessive wolf' on my CV, but it would make it more interesting, don't you think?"

"Absolutely," Harry had said, grinning. It explained so much about Nick. Obviously there had been a wolf or two somewhere who had given Nick knowledge - there was ways he'd acted around Mum that had been the kind of thing only knowing wolves did around heads of families - but he acted so... _human_. "If I had a CV, I could put 'wolf-raised human' on mine."

Nick hummed. "Is that it, though? I've seen you sniff me."

And then Harry had explained the basics he gave to everyone he trusted enough. Skins were common enough that they had places in traditional pack structure, even if those places tended to be shit. They had a milder version of the nose and speed, and they had enough of the smell to pass on either side if there wasn't much scrutiny. 

But skins didn't have the fur without another wolf changing them. Ever.

That all was fine. Harry had braced himself for the "Wait, so why haven't you turned?" comment, but again, Nick's lack of experience played in Harry's favour. He didn't think Nick would ask even if he'd known, though. Nick was polite like that.

So Nick had known to ask Harry if he'd wanted to run, and Harry, knowing he'd be in London for work, had gladly accepted. That's where the conversation had ended.

One of the designated areas for a run in the London area was, fortunately enough, Primrose Hill. It was where Nick ran when he had the time to run. Workplaces were supposed to allow time off for the full moon, but the human world had no problem booking gigs and award shows on full moon nights. Besides, Harry suspected Nick would _hate_ devoting nearly two weeks of the year to something that involved so little talking and music.

All wolves had to run during the moon sometimes, though. Even Harry, not visibly wolf, had spent too many full moons working since X Factor. He was buzzing with some kind of wordless energy when he'd met Nick at Primrose Hill as the sun set.

Nick was sitting on their pre-arranged bench and waved Harry over when he spotted him, grinning. He was wearing a dressing gown, of all things. Harry never ran without clothes; as much as he wanted to, he suspected a naked human running would be a bit more noticeable than a person naked for a few moments before they turned wolf. But Mum and Gemma had worn normal clothes and just taken them off when they could feel it beginning. 

Harry couldn't resist throwing a "nice outfit" quip Nick's way when he was in earshot. Nick put on a look of offence.

"I will have you know, popstar," Nick said, straightening, "that I have worn many a nice outfit to a run such as this, and I have had such outfits stolen before I was on two legs again. Seeing how it's illegal to tear out a thief's throat..."

"But a _dressing gown_?" Harry asked. "Are you wearing anything underneath?"

"That's my business," Nick said easily.

A zing across Harry's skin stopped him from replying, and judging by the way Nick's head snapped toward the rising moon, he felt it too. Harry turned away from him politely. He'd watched Mum and Gemma change more times than he could count, but despite how Harry felt about Nick, he'd only known him for a short amount of time. It wasn't the nudity. They'd seen each other mostly (Nick) or completely (Harry) naked before.

The air grew thicker, and Harry shivered, knowing without looking that Nick's shape was changing behind him. 

Wolves didn't really care about watching each other change, either. Maybe that was another way Harry was just a little wrong, but...he didn't know, it felt _intimate_ somehow. Come to think of it, Harry hadn't seen Nick as a wolf before, either.

When he felt the moon settle, he turned again, and his breath caught.

Nick was definitely a wolf. 

Harry had, somehow, expected him to have a smaller, leaner look, but he was broad chested and huge. Any one of his paws looked the size of Harry's head. Nick's fur was a beautiful black-and-silver that seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. If Harry hadn't known Nick and met him as a wolf, Harry would have thought him the stately head of some pack. A middle-aged father, maybe, or a grandfather, even if his muzzle didn't have the speckles of an older wolf.

And then Nick-the-wolf slouched, let his tongue hang out, and _wagged his tail_.

"Oh my _god_ ," Harry said, barking out a surprised laugh. That was Nick, all right.

He dropped to his knees and wrapped Nick in a big hug. He smelled a delightful combination of wolf-and-Nick, which was the reverse of the usual situation, which was Nick-and-wolf-and-expensive-fragrance. Harry loved that smell. It was nearly as comforting as home at this point. But this was lovely too. It gave Harry a little chill, getting to see something that was so close to his own experience and yet an experience that was completely unique to Nick.

Nick leaned into the hug in that solid, wolf way, and when Harry pulled back and stood again, he butted his head against Harry's leg.

"Yes, I suppose we should get started." Harry held out a hand. "If you'd like to do the honours?"

Nick-the-wolf huffed, but he threw his head back and gave the most beautiful howl Harry had ever heard. Harry felt it dance across his skin. A couple answering calls came from elsewhere; Harry could see a whiter-furred wolf down the hill, and there was another just out of sight. Primrose Hill seemed rather empty for a wolf run in the city.

Harry looked at Nick and knew, even if he'd been waist-deep in strange wolves, that he would have felt like this run was theirs.

Nick took off.

Harry followed.


	2. Chapter 2

Gran and Grandpa gave Harry less money at Christmas than Gemma.

It was probably the first of the things that he noticed as a child. Children were very attuned to difference and fairness, and when your grandparents' only presence in your life was the seasonal card and accompanying money, it was like catnip to a cat. (Which Harry knew about because Mum _loved_ cats. Every time he saw one curled up on top of a giant, sleeping wolf, it felt like home.)

Mum tried to brush it off. They must have forgotten a note, I have a spare in my purse, and so on. But the fact remained that there was one 20 pound note and one 10 pound note enclosed with the card, and there was the strange stillness in Mum's face when she pulled them apart and read the numbers on the notes.

After that, Mum didn't open Gran and Grandpa's card in front of Harry. He always received the same amount of money as Gemma, but he always knew where it came from.

-

Gemma was fifteen when she started poring through the family records. They were books kept in Mum's room, dusty old things the size of Harry's head with "Cox" on the spine in plain, golden print. Gemma intended to start digitising them, reading online about archiving and what that took.

"Thought you liked science," Harry said one night when she'd taken over the dinner table with her work. Mum was out. Gemma usually only worked on archiving when Mum was out, and it wasn't like Mum didn't know about it, but Harry, at eleven, enjoyed the thought of boring paperwork as an act of teenage rebellion.

Gemma nodded. "I can like more than one thing, can't I? My marks are good enough."

"But that's boring. You could be..." He fiddled with his hands and made an explosive noise. "That's what I'd do."

"Then _you_ go into science."

Harry had zero interest in it, especially because skins like him usually went into the medical sciences. Wolf knowledge and senses without the same ties to the moon? Advance the family and give the pack a doctor. It was practical, and Harry had nothing against medicine. It just wasn't _him_.

"No thanks," he said. He squinted at a paper Gemma had in front of her. "What's that? I thought the whole point was to do this digitally."

"Nothing," Gemma said, shoving the papers away so hard they flew off the table. She got up like it was nothing and scooped the papers up again. "Do your own revising and stop looking over my shoulder."

Harry did stop looking over her shoulder...at that moment. Gemma left one of her papers in the book itself after that night, and was it Harry's fault if the books were family property? Not a bit.

He pulled the book down from the shelves in Mum's room while she was making breakfast the next morning, and his heart stopped when he saw "skins" written in Gemma's neat handwriting. There were lines of names and two years in parentheses afterward - birth and death, probably - and scribbles about their jobs. 

There were also two marks underneath every name. For a long time, there was either "m-?" or "f-?", but the more modern the years became, the more it changed. There were still some question marks, but some said "m-/" or "f-/", and some said "m-m" and "f-f".

But three generations back, for what seems to be a changed wolf that married into the family, there was a "f-m", and Gemma had circled it so hard there were dents in the paper.

Mum called "Harry! Breakfast!", and Harry put everything away. Time enough to figure it out later.

-

"I want you to be able to choose, darling."

Harry was eight years old and being read to by Mum. Bedtime was always their time to talk; there was something about the low light and his warm bed that left him freer to ask questions and left Mum more likely to answer. He'd already asked her how babies are made ("Precocious!" Mum had said, kissing on the forehead before she explained) and how big the universe was ("We'll have to look that one up later, I'm afraid"), and, of course, "Why don't you and Dad live together?" 

On that particular night, they'd come home from their grandparents'. Many of Harry's cousins had been around, popping in and out of their wolf forms. One, a girl called Lizzie some four years younger than Harry, asked, "Why doesn't your mum change you? _My_ mum changed Georgie."

Harry had seen George, who was a year younger than Harry. His gran had been doting on him like Harry had seen her dote on others his age, feeding him sweets and asking him about school. On the other hand, when Harry had politely asked where the loo was, Gran had given him a tight smile and pointed him in the direction of the toilet in as few words as possible.

And so, in the safety of his bed, Harry had asked Mum, "Don't you want me to be a wolf?" And Mum said she wanted Harry to make the choice.

"I want you to see more of the world first, love," she said, patting his tummy gently. "I want you to know who you are in this body before you change it."

Harry felt...something in response. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was intense. He needed more time to sort out his head, and he nodded so that Mum would know he heard. He listened to her read Harry Potter before she shut off the light and went to her own bed.

He didn't sleep for hours, but before he drifted off, he knew what he was feeling.

Disappointment.

-

Harry was freshly eighteen, and he was laughing in his mum's face. He clapped a hand over his mouth, but he still shook with the giggles.

"I'm being _serious_ ," she said, but her lips were twitching. Mum had always said his laugh was infectious. "I know it sounds old-fashioned and strange, but—"

"It sounds like an old wives' tale," Harry corrected.

"It _sounds_ like one. But it's not!" Mum crossed her arms over her chest. "If you ask Nick to change you into a wolf, I don't think you realise how different things will be."

"Did I say I'd ask him?"

"Have you ever thought to ask me?"

The laugh died in Harry's mouth. "Mum, we had that talk years ago. You never wanted to."

"That's not true. I just wanted you to know what you were doing when you made the choice." Mum laid her hands over Harry's where they were resting on his counter. "And again, I'm asking you to wait a few more years until you're more settled in your career."

Always putting it off. Harry sighed. "It's not like changing will spoil things. If anything, it might make me feel less..."

Mum was obviously waiting for him to finish his thought, but Harry didn't know how to say _wrong_ without making her feel like a failure for choosing this for him. He shook his head a little to tell her he's not saying any more, and she nodded.

"Changing won't spoil things, but it's another thing to deal with on top of everything else. And if you and Nick..."

"We're _friends_ , Mum."

"Even so." Mum always picked the strangest things to stand firm on. "You _will_ be more likely to mate, and you're so young, Harry."

"Old wives' tale. Gemma's been a wolf her whole life, and she'll probably be a spinster."

Mum laughed. "Please, say that to her while I'm around. I want to see it."

"But you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes. Just...think about what _I'm_ saying, will you?"

As much as Harry hated to admit it, Mum did have a point about how busy Harry was. He'd barely had a chance to breathe, much less see his family, for a long time, and he suspected chances to see Nick wouldn't be as frequent as he'd like, either. 

But he'd chosen music and the weird kind of fame that came with this particular path, and he was going to keep choosing it.

"I'll think it over," he said aloud, and he hugged Mum tight.

-

The day before Harry went out for X Factor, when he was sixteen and a baker, Mum showed him a picture of a drawing on her computer.

"One of my cousins just emailed this to me," she said. "You can kind of make out his hair. See?"

It took Harry a moment - the picture was poor quality and pixelated - but after some staring, Harry could see what she was talking about. It was a man from...he couldn't guess how long ago. Probably at least a couple centuries. There was a bit of curl to the strands of his hair, but the man looked more like Mum than Harry, probably.

Mum grinned. "There used to be a role in packs for a singer. We called them 'howlers'."

"Because you're wolves," Harry said dryly.

"Because we're wolves," Mum agreed. "He was the last official one in the family. They lasted longer in some other packs, but with the push for doctors in the Cox packs, most potential singers went to uni instead."

"So he was a skin?"

Mum shook her head. "Things were shit for skins back then, I'm afraid. Howler was too good a role for someone who didn't shift at the moons."

"It was, was it?" Harry laughed. "That's a real confidence boost."

Mum closed the window on her computer and spun her chair to look at Harry. "When you get through—"

"If," Harry said, rapping his knuckles on her desk. He had a lot going for him, but there was so much that was up to chance and the specific way the universe went each day. Mum didn't have to jinx him on top of it.

" _When_." Mum dropped her hands from the desk. "I'll make sure your gran and grandpa get every single episode of the show. They need to know about the new Cox howler."

Harry's eyes stung a bit. "Yeah?"

"Should have stuck up for you a long time ago. I..." She paused to swallow hard. Her voice had gotten thick. "I should have told them we're a family."

"Hey," Harry said, patting her on the shoulder. "It's okay."

"Is it?"

Harry winced. It wasn't, not entirely. "I want it to be."

He leaned down to hug her, and she patted his arms, nodding.

-

There was a going-away party for Gemma the weekend before she was off to uni, and a lot of the extended pack, as well as many of Gemma's bemused human friends, filled up their house. Harry spent a lot of the night circulating; there were so many interesting people to see and talk with, and Harry, at fourteen, was at an age where he was starting to feel more grown-up, but not so grown-up that he was self-conscious. (He'd seen Gemma close up when she hit adolescence. He wasn't sure he'd ever do that, but there was still plenty of time to find out.)

He didn't spend much time with Gemma during the party, but as it was winding down, Gemma had her feet in the pool and a drink in her hands, and she waved him over. Harry, being Harry, stripped down to his briefs and jumped in the pool, but far enough away that Gemma didn't get splashed. He made his way over to her when he surfaced again, pushing his damp hair out of his face.

"You are so weird," Gemma said, but fondly. "Ugh. What am I going to do without you there to make fun of me? I love how you do my laundry when you feel guilty."

She kissed the top of his head. She smelt of alcohol and her wolf, and Harry felt her impending absence like a sharp stab to the chest.

"And what am I going to do without you to back me up with Mum and Robin?" Harry loved Robin, but Gemma's absence meant two adults to his one teenager. Even though Harry's charm gave him an edge, numbers were numbers.

"Please, I'm a call or email away. It's very easy for me to weigh in on anything."

Harry beamed at her. "You love me."

"Maybe." She smiled back at him. "I don't suppose you're willing to pick up the slack on the family records? It would be so much easier for me on holidays if I'm not buried in those dirty old books."

Harry made a disgusted face, and she nodded, resigned.

"Oh, you know, I meant to tell you." She waggled a finger at him. "I noticed a pattern about the skins in our family. Long time ago. Years, probably."

The paper in the book. Harry had totally forgotten about it. "I saw some of your notes once," he said slowly. "I thought you were researching...well. Me."

Gemma scoffed, listing a bit before she steadied herself on the concrete with her free hand. "No, no. I was just noticing that there were some notes on former skins when they first made the change. I don't know anecdotal it was. Fuck, I wish I had access to some other families' records. Can you imagine the data collection you could do?"

"Gem," Harry said, using the exact same tone of voice she used when Harry went on a rambling tangent.

"Right. Sorry." She took another sip of her drink. "Looks like it's not uncommon for people who start out as skins to be one sex when they're human and another when they're a wolf. Or gender. It's hard to tell because there's no differentiation between sex and gender in the old files."

Harry blinked. He'd never heard of anything like that. Mum had certainly never mentioned it. "Really? How common is it in born wolves?"

"I saw a couple, but once I thought it might be more common in our family's skins, I looked around more and I found _ten_." Gemma nodded with satisfaction. "In the last two centuries. There aren't that many in born wolves in all the records."

" _Wow._ "

"And I found it in a skin who married into the family from another pack!" Gemma sighed wistfully. "I'd almost study it at uni if there were better postgrad wolf programs."

"You don't think—"

"Gem!" That came from one of Gemma's friends, who rushed out to meet Gemma with a glass in her hand. Gemma eagerly waved her forward, and Harry didn't get to finish his thought.

_You don't think that's why Mum didn't want to change me, do you?_

No. As he pushed away in the pool, kicking his feet, he was pretty sure that was rubbish. He could come up with a million arguments against it. Mum's parents were shit sometimes, for instance, but Harry's cousin George had been a skin, and they loved him after he'd changed. That was what was important to them.

And Mum. Mum loved Harry. Even if he snuck behind her back and found a wolf to change him - he suspected Gemma would do it, if he asked nicely enough - she would be frustrated he hadn't listened, but he'd seen her staring at him during the moons and knew she would love to have him running on four legs with her.

Harry climbed out of the pool, letting himself drip wet on the far part of the concrete, away from where Gemma and her clump of her friends had gathered.

All the logic in the world didn't seem to make the hollow pit in his stomach disappear.

-

//

-

Dad wanted a footballer in the family.

Nick's earliest memories were of football, since the whole family were fans: going to matches, getting a football for Christmas and then another one at his birthday when he'd given the first away to a neighbour, being fitted out in a kit on special occasions. There were pictures of Nick as a baby posed with the bloody footballs. Dad even kicked around with him a bit when Nick was in wolf form to see if that would help Nick take to it.

And all right, Nick wouldn't deny he loved the attention. It was still apparent from a young age that Nick was far too clumsy as a human to kick a ball from one end of a pitch to another, and it was fortunate for everyone involved that no one in the family was too stubborn to see that much, Dad included.

Still, Dad wouldn't let a little thing like a lack of natural athletic ability stop him from getting Nick involved in the game _somehow_. 

It was the posters that caught Nick's attention. He didn't put up too many in his room - he wanted Dad to think the beginnings of interest were there, but there was no way he could pretend he actually knew much - but there were a couple of players that weren't too terrible to look at. David Beckham, for one. He'd played for United and everything.

"Plenty of wolves in the game," Dad always said when he saw those posters. "Not Beckham, but most of the captains in the league."

It probably shouldn't have been a surprise that Nick's first snog was with a lad named Daniel out on the pitch. Daniel had still been in his kit from practise, even. For longer than Nick would care to admit, the smell of freshly-cut grass would give him inappropriate erections, even if his interests ended up nowhere near sport. (Daniel was one of the few athletes he ever pulled, probably because of the way Daniel ignored him in lessons after.)

When he looked back, music and DJing seemed a natural progression for him, between his early Tina Turner obsession and the way he tagged along to raves with Andy. But had it been, really? When his father had sunk him deeply into sport and the only thing that lingered was an appreciation for David Beckham?

Luckily for Nick, he was too busy living his life to be introspective.

-

He did think, from time to time, about the non-issue of his sexuality.

"Figured," Eileen had told him the first time he'd had a proper date. "The way you pranced about in front of telly as a child. Wasn't he fabulous, Pete?"

Pete didn't grunt any kind of agreement, but he didn't disagree, which was sometimes the way he agreed.

There was a quiet twist within Nick, a sense of _that's not how it works_ , but Nick had been self-aware enough at that age to know that he just counteracted his parents sometimes naturally, so he let it lie. He was gay because he fancied lads. Fucked them, when he got older. And yet, it came slipping out of his mouth sometimes. "I was so camp, no one could deny it."

Gay culture had come less natural than wolf culture, somehow. He'd always had the urge to find others like him, but it had been wolves, not gay men. Maybe because he was so set upon finding out the rules of the wolf world and because he had his sights set on radio. Nick was excellent at multitasking, and he never needed as much sleep as his human family seemed to, but that part of his life wasn't giving him trouble, exactly, so he pulled or went on the occasional date, and that was the extent of it at first.

He didn't start going to gay clubs properly until he was legal and in Liverpool for uni, which seemed bizarre in retrospect, but considering how orderly both uni and Liverpool's gay district were, there was a certain logic to it. His first outing was actually in connection with his student radio social; they rotated clubs in the city for different kinds of music. 

Nick didn't pull on the first night in the gay club, a small place with black paint on the walls and sticky tables. He was the token gay man in the group, which came with its own level of scrutiny. Why he was when there were plenty of fit men with tight jeans and without shirts loitering around was beyond him, but then, he was the only gay man there. Some people didn't know what was in front of them.

He liked what he saw enough to return later on his own on a weeknight. He knew what he looked like, but he found another nervous-looking lad who said he was going to uni, and they jerked each other off in the toilets. They exchanged numbers. Nick never heard from him again. He didn't expect to; he knew a fake number when he saw one.

It wasn't long after that that he pulled his first model. Catalogue, mostly local. Oddly self-deprecating for someone that pretty, but then, Nick was very confident for someone who wasn't exactly a twink. Two nights after that, he spoke with a group of tourists in their early 30s and exchanged orgasms with the hottest of the bunch behind the club. Nick smoked a bit and overheard the same man saying "rubbish" to his mates before they left for greener pastures.

He pulled a Diesel model an hour after that.

-

Nick was back in Oldham for some holiday after he first moved to London. (His mum kindly paid for his train ticket. There were nice things about being on his own in the workforce, but the lack of funds to go home weren't one of them.) Thinking back later, Nick couldn't remember which holiday it was. A bank holiday, perhaps? Either way, it was spring because it wasn't too bloody freezing for a skirt, and Nick had a picture of himself wearing a delightful little plaid number on his MySpace. He showed his legs at any opportunity. Brought all the boys to the yard.

He hadn't known, unfortunately, that his parents had figured out the internet beyond chain emails.

It was just him and his parents, and Mum was in the kitchen finishing dinner, when Dad asked, "Do you think you're a woman?"

Nick couldn't even muster a "sorry?". He wasn't often speechless, but all he could do was blink at his dad.

Pete, for his part, only paused long enough to see if Nick would answer before offering, "That why you wear skirts and things?"

"Where did you see me wearing a skirt?"

"That page on the computer." Pete waved vaguely in the direction of the computer room. "I searched your name. Your sister showed me how."

Nick took a moment to close his eyes and curse his sister's helpful tendencies before he said, "Gay men wear skirts, Dad."

"You're dressing like a woman."

"No?"

"They make films about it." Nick's heart genuinely stopped for a moment before Dad said, "That one about the boots is in the video shop. Something to do with a shoe factory."

Nick hadn't seen Kinky Boots, but he knew it existed. All he needed to know was that it wasn't porn. "Some gay men dress like women. Makeup, and all that. I'm just a bloke in a skirt sometimes."

"Oh." Was Pete...disappointed? 

Well, either way, Nick wasn't going to keep the conversation going. "How's the football?" he asked.

That was enough to distract Pete properly. He could tell his dad wasn't fooled, but sometimes, even neutral ground wasn't far enough away from what Nick wanted to talk about.

-

//

-

Mum liked to joke, after Dad was gone, that Harry was the "man of the house". Harry took it a bit seriously when he was little, doing his best to look out for Mum and Gemma in the way children did, trying to share his meals or bringing Mum dandelions from the yard.

By the time Harry reached his teenage years, Gemma had painted Harry's nails more than once when she was home on holiday, and Mum didn't blink or tell her off for emasculating him. (Harry scraped off the paint before he went to school. He liked the way it looked, but he also knew how to read social situations.) Mum only complained about him staining her shirts when he borrowed her blouses, but she liked shopping for clothes. Food disappearing from the pantries, that was more of a pain, but Harry was "a growing person", just like Gemma.

If there was a man of the house, it was Mum.

Harry told her once when it was just the two of them at dinner - this was after Robin came into the picture, so their solitude stuck in Harry's memory - and she'd looked pleased, even as she'd said, "You know that's a rigid way of looking at things, right?"

"'Course," he'd said.

"Good. Don't want to think I'm being a terrible parent just for a laugh."

It wasn't that Mum was the stereotypical alpha wolf. Mum had gotten it across very early that such divisions were "the crap humans put on wolves". Packs were families, and they were a family. Mum just happened to lead it because she was the parent of the house. On full moons, she was just as willing to play in the ways that Harry and Gemma wanted as she was to lead them on a structured hunt. 

(Harry wasn't into the hunt part of the wolf culture, but he'd been taught how to take part with a knife from the age he was old enough not to accidentally stab himself. Which was at a pretty young age, especially considering how clumsy he'd always been.)

It wasn't until Harry left for London that he even vaguely considered being part of another pack. He'd always known he would make his own way in a different place than Holmes Chapel, but for some reason, it had never occurred to him that he wouldn't run with Mum regularly. Maybe he'd been afraid to jinx it, even mentally. Maybe it was that, even in the best case scenario with X Factor, there was always the chance he'd go home.

By the time he met Nick, all he thought was that, if he had to be his own pack for long, he wanted to lead like Mum. It seemed a little silly to think of that way, but at the same time, there seemed no room for anything else.

-

Most of what Harry remembered from his first days of school were the toilets.

In pack territories, there were just...toilets. Everyone knew what they were, but they weren't particularly labelled. Harry recalled, vaguely, going with Mum to human territory and seeing the different signs on them, but they didn't matter because he went in with her. She knew the markings. Harry didn't need to know.

But on his first day of primary school, his teacher led his class to the loos and clearly explained that boys went in one, and girls went in another. She asked everyone to form a queue in front of their respective toilet, and luckily, Harry wasn't the only wolf to stand between the lines at first, confused. He was the last wolf to join a queue, and that was because the teacher ushered him gently to the boys' side.

"But I didn't get to choose," he remembered saying, but it had been lost in the noise. He probably wouldn't have gotten an answer anyway.

-

After Mum and Dad split, and after Harry started going to school, Harry and Gemma always spent their free weeks with his dad and the Styles pack.

When Harry was an adult, talking drunkenly at parties to people like Aimee and Daisy, he tended to sum up the Styles wolves by saying, "They weren't the Coxes." It was partially because it was true - no two family packs were the same, and how could they be? - but it was mostly because he didn't remember well. He remembered it being hot because it had always been summer, and he remembered his dad's shaggier wolf form and wondering what that must have felt like in the heat, but beyond that, not much came to mind.

"You had so much pack that you forgot some?" Nick asked one night, when his own flat was hot and hushed. They were in Nick's bed together, but much of the rest of Nick's pack were crashed on his couch or on pillows in his living room. Considering Nick's pack was predominantly human, they acted awfully wolf-like.

"I wouldn't say that, exactly."

"I had to go looking for wolves in Manchester," Nick said, a put-on tone of wistfulness colouring his words. "Back when I was a forlorn, solitary pup."

Harry suspected Nick welcomed the opportunity to make friends in that way. Still, he wasn't sure that Nick hadn't been lonely. Harry knew what it was like to be surrounded by people and still be an outsider.

"Wait," Harry said, frowning as an image came to mind. "I do sort of remember..."

He and Gemma had been sitting by a lake. Harry didn't remember where it was; all he knew these days is that the Styles' tended to be more migratory than the Coxes, and he'd gone somewhere different each summer. Gemma had been reading, and Harry had been sitting with her, and there had been older wolves...

"I think they told her that reading wasn't any good for her?" Harry frowned. He should text Gemma to see if she remembered.

"That's shit. No one reads like your sister."

Dad had taken Harry aside after that. Harry had remembered that part on its own because his dad had given him so few talks growing up. He had been awkward, tripping over his words, finally stammering out something about what it was like to be a man.

"You need to watch after Gemma," Dad had said. "People won't always listen to her."

"Why?" Harry had asked, horrified.

Dad had sighed. "Let's just say that the Styles' have taken on human society more seriously than the Coxes. You're growing into a man, and many parts of the world will take that to mean you speak for your sister."

Back in Nick's bed, Harry was shaking his head at the memory. "I can't believe I didn't remember that until now."

"Memories are shit sometimes. I can never remember where I put my keys." Nick scratched at Harry's hair, and Harry smiled at him. "Did you tell your mum about it?"

"I did." Harry remembered that without any trouble, too. Mum had said that it was complicated and gone on to talk about the ways the Cox packs also tended toward sexism, and how individuals both bucked and reflected societal trends. She'd actually used the word _sexism_. Dad would never. "You ever get the feeling that you don't deserve all the wonderful people around you?"

Nick allowed a fond smile on his face for a moment before turning mock serious. "Absolutely not. I completely deserve the company I keep."

"Do you."

"Oh yes. Wealthy sorts, superstars...aren't I a perfect fit?"

Harry decided that dropping the conversation in favour of play fighting Nick was the way to go at that point.

-

Dad had been trying to set a date to take Harry for a drink when he turned eighteen. He was closer to his nineteenth birthday than his eighteenth when they finally managed it, taking a table in a quiet pub with a beer each. Dad had opinions on hops and breweries and gave Harry a couple tips for picking one to his taste. Harry was too busy marvelling that he could have opinions on beer. He'd been legal to drink for nearly a year, and there was still part of him that couldn't believe that he wouldn't need his celebrity or someone else to buy for him.

And then there was the fact that Harry got to quarrel with Dad over paying. He was old enough to do that. He was probably doing better than Dad financially. He made a mental note to text Nick about it later. Nick definitely understood how surreal it was to have money in the bank. Nick was one of the first people in Harry's life to treat him like an adult at all, and not in that quietly proud way that Dad was doing.

"I can't believe you're a man now," Dad said. "Seems like just yesterday I was letting Gemma sniff you for the first time."

Harry's inside twisted. He made himself smile. "I wouldn't say I am a man now. And Gemma sniffed me the other day. She hates my cologne."

Luckily, Dad didn't seem to hear him at all. That happened sometimes. Dad liked to talk and be heard. "I was starting to think of settling down at your age."

"Were you?"

"I know it seems young, but it was the way back then for my pack. You focused on courting as much as your career, if not more."

"But you were older when you got married."

"Took a while for the right woman to come along." Dad took a long drink of his beer and carefully wiped his mouth after. "You think much of women? I'm betting the papers aren't a good way to tell."

Harry took a drink of his own. He didn't want to talk about his love life. "So why didn't it work?"

Dad huffed out a big breath. "Your mum never told you?"

"She told me some things. But how did you see it?"

"Well..." Dad laughed. "She's her own kind of woman, isn't she? Loving, warm, and completely who she was. Who she is. And I'm my own man. Does that make sense?"

Harry smiled. "More than you know."

He'd steered the conversation toward safer topics after that - their respective jobs, how the Styles pack was doing, Gemma - and gone home. The meeting had been what he'd expected it to be. There were a lot of things you could say about Desmond Styles, but "inconsistent" wasn't one of them.

_She's her own kind of woman._ That was Dad, all right.

Harry hopped in the shower to get the pub smell off. Well, the smell of alcohol. Just because Harry was an adult didn't mean he was any less clumsy than he ever was, and he'd dripped his beer onto his arm and his clothes at several points. That was really what adulthood was, wasn't it? You get what you want, and you spill half of it down your front.

He sighed as he grabbed his shampoo. Had to keep the trademark curls clean.

"Her own kind of woman," Harry muttered aloud as he scrubbed. He stood under the water until the suds washed away.

Maybe that's what Harry had been missing all these years. He wasn't strange or different: he was his own kind of man. Or wolf. Both, really. No one fit the stereotype of either, not all the way, and that was why they were stereotypes. Mum never really called herself her own kind of woman, come to think of it. Dad, the one who only saw his kids every now and then, used those terms. Mum always used person when possible.

Harry leaned out of the water. "I'm my own kind of man."

He frowned. No. That wasn't true at all.

The rest of the shower went as showers usually went for Harry. He shaved a bit, turned off the tap, and towelled off. Usual, everyday stuff.

But he knew that he wasn't his own kind of man. He didn't know what that meant, exactly, but he knew it was very, very important.


	3. Chapter 3

_2012_

The sun rose after Nick's first full moon with Harry, ending the moon's pull, and they were both as human again as they ever were.

Nick hadn't known what to expect, going in. Maybe he'd had some picture of running circles around Harry in his head, and he'd known that was a bit of a fantasy, but it hadn't been like that at all. It wasn't that Nick changed into a wolf, and Harry stayed a human, and he trailed after Nick. There _was_ something of the wolf in Harry, both before Nick changed and after.

They'd run at the beginning of the night, that electric pull that all wolves felt to settle into their other forms again. Nick had done an actual hunt before, which was supposedly what the pull was supposed to be harnessed for, but it just. It wasn't him. Some wolf-designated parks and pitches let animals loose, but Primrose Hill wasn't one of them, and it was one of the reasons Nick had settled in the area.

And once they'd settled again, they'd napped with each other in the grass. They took it in turns. Nick was half-asleep at one point with Harry's hand lightly stroking his fur, and he could feel Harry's intense gaze on him. When Nick had stopped dozing, Harry was curled up beside him, but he'd snapped to attention when Nick had nosed him gently. His eyes didn't glow, but there was wolf behind them.

When they changed back - and Harry _did_ change, his gaze softening into what Nick knew of him - Nick dressed again, and they walked to the nearest McDonalds.

"Only the best for major popstars," Nick said brightly when Harry took in their location. He'd maybe slept an hour or two the night before, but he needed even less sleep during the full moon than he normally did, and he felt like he'd slept twenty-four hours. No, he felt like he'd been rubbed all night by the best massage therapist on the planet. It was good to go somewhere afterward because Nick got so noodly and loose that he could just sigh happily on the floor of his flat all day if given half the opportunity.

Harry grinned at Nick, but it was a tired smile.

They ducked in and out of the restaurant - quick, but not _obviously_ quick, tended to be the way to deal with places such as this with people as famous as Harry - and were back in Nick's flat before their food had cooled. Harry barely spoke the whole way, which was strange for Nick. Harry wasn't ever quiet with him.

He waited until Harry had eaten to see if that improved him, but when Harry's wrappers were balled up and thrown out in the bag and Harry was staring at the wall and he said nothing, Nick decided further action was needed.

"So was that okay?" Nick asked.

"Hmm?" Harry looked at Nick, at the McDonalds bag. "Oh yes. Good. Thanks for buying."

Nick laughed under his breath. "Meant the moon, but you're welcome. The running and everything? No complaints?"

Harry's eyes seemed to focus. "Oh! No, that was wonderful. It's been too long."

"Something's on your mind, and I'm not going to pry. But if you want to talk, we can." Nick sighed. Feelings. Ugh. They got all over him, and he couldn't get them out in the wash. "Just seems like something's wrong."

Harry laughed. He shook his head. "Nothing more than usual, Grim. Dreadfully boring."

"I can't imagine anything about your life being boring."

"Oh, you know how it is." Harry waved a hand. "We're going to go off on tour, and there's going to be a lot of sitting around, a lot of waiting, and I won't be able to fill it up with anything."

Nick had seen a bit of what happened to boybands, back in his youth, and combined with the reality show aspect...they were milked until dry, and Nick didn't know which was worse: if One Direction turned up dry fast, or if it took a very long time.

"It's not a complaint," Harry said. "I wouldn't be doing this if it was."

"So that's not what's bothering you."

Harry's gaze turned sharp all of a sudden, and it landed straight on Nick.

"Are you settled where you are?" Harry asked.

"Settled?" That was an interesting question. "How do you mean?"

Harry gestured around at Nick's flat. "Your life. Do you think you're settled?"

"Don't know. I mean, it's not like I'm going to leave London any time soon, if that's what you mean." Nick tapped a finger on the tabletop as he considered. "Could pull up roots any time I needed to, though. BBC's my main gig at the moment, but I do shows on the side, and that could happen anywhere."

"But your friends? And you own property here."

Nick forgot, sometimes, that Harry hadn't always had money. Harry hadn't been poor as a child either, but he knew what home ownership meant to people who couldn't just buy a ridiculously expensive flat on a whim. The way he talked reminded him of a less-hard Pete sometimes.

"Friends are friends anywhere. Half my bloody friends are elsewhere in the world most of the year for work." He could feel a fond smile spread on his face, and Harry's smile grew in return. "My life's good how it is, but life changes all the time. Feel about as ready for that as any person could."

"Not at all, then?"

"Not a bit." Nick laughed.

Harry's smile grew more thoughtful again. "So the wolf."

"What about him? Me? Us?"

"You feel good about your life, right?"

Nick nodded. When had this become more about him than what Harry was thinking?

"How much does your wolf have to do with that? Does your wolf feel inclined to stay?"

"We're not really different people," Nick said. "I'm a wolf like this, too, you know."

"Didn't answer my question." Harry's gaze had, somehow, grown more intense. It seemed this was getting close to what was bothering him, but...

But Nick didn't talk about this part very much. He had his pack, he had his life, but Harry was the only wolf he'd spent a lot of extended time with. Well, outside of school and uni, but those didn't really count because those wolves were just ones that had been around him for other reasons. He and Harry were choosing to spend time together.

"Don't know how to put it into words." It came out a bit sheepish. Talking was Nick's _job_ , and he talked about himself more than anything else, probably, so this should have been easy. And yet.

Harry blinked and shook himself, pushing away from the table a bit. "Shit. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"No, that's not it. I just..." _I want to tell you what you want to hear. What you need to hear._ "I've lived who I am since I was a kid, Harry. I've tried to live as me, and that means as the wolf as well. I haven't talked about it in the media just yet, but if I get a bigger show at Radio 1 or make the jump to telly, it'll come up. And I'll talk about it. Just like I'll talk about being gay or wanting the Breakfast Show since I was a kid or whatever else."

Nick put his hands to his face. Rambling. Helpful, Grimshaw.

But he lowered his hands, and Harry was looking at Nick like...like he was impressed? About Nick?

"Gemma's always called her wolf Matilda," Harry said. "After the book."

"Book?"

"The one about the girl who liked to read and had psychic powers. Mum could never stand hearing the name."

Nick laughed, surprised. "Haven't sorted out a name for mine. Maybe...maybe Edward."

"Oi," Harry said mildly. "Think I've got that one on reserve."

They laughed, and it seemed a strange place for the conversation to end - for the day as a whole to end, really - but Harry had to rush off, and they hugged, and Nick's place felt emptier in his absence.

Still. Nick felt good about where they left it. If Harry was going to disappear on tour, that was the way to do it.

-

From the outside, it looked as if Nick expected Harry to be busy and just...not visit. Harry felt surprised every time Nick brushed off future plans that happened on Harry's breaks. To be fair, Nick worked with musicians and had them as friends, so he knew how tour worked. It would be Nick's pack in London, with occasional guest appearances by Harry.

What he didn't know was how drawn Harry was to Nick.

It didn't have much to do with their wolf commonalities. Once Harry had put everything about himself out there, it didn't come up much. The occasional joke with Aimee or Collette. The occasional full moon with Nick. But everything else was parties and appearances and festivals and their music sides aligning. Harry supported Nick through his hop to the Breakfast Show - he really _did_ have his life figured out - and Nick supported Harry through his growing fame.

So their wolf sides didn't come into it much...except where Nick's flat was concerned.

Harry felt a bit ridiculous about it, not helped by his mum's pointed silence whenever they were on the phone and Harry would admit he was on Nick's couch. It was just...Harry _was_ on tour a lot, and when he was in London, he was either on short breaks or had work to do in the city, and he needed. He needed _something_. Relaxation? Familiarity? He couldn't name it, but he found it at Nick's.

Gemma visited Harry at Nick's once during the year. Nick kindly offered to make dinner, in the way where he ordered takeout, and they ate out of cartons and watched bad telly and drank too much alcohol. Gemma fell asleep on the sofa before they were done watching whatever crap late-night movie was on, and Harry passed out where he so often did: in Nick's bed. It felt more like his bed than any other bed on the planet, probably.

She went off the next day, but she called Harry later. He was in the Range Rover and on the way to a meeting, but he set the phone to hands free.

After a bit of intro chatter, she said, "Okay, I have to ask. You and Nick..."

Harry groaned. "Not you too. You know how many times Mum's asked me?"

"I've been around for some of it." Gemma sighed. "No, I thought I was being silly because if you were actually together and you hadn't told me about it, you'd be more awkward. You acted far too much like newlyweds for that."

"Human newlyweds, or wolf newlyweds?"

"Does it matter with you two?"

She had a point there. He sighed. "He's gay, Gem."

"And?"

"And...I haven't told him everything about me."

"I thought you told him all the wolf stuff."

"I did."

There was a moment of silence, followed by a long " _Oh_ " from Gemma. "There's something to tell him there?"

"Maybe. There's not nothing."

That was the biggest admission Harry had made about his gender to date. There was a thrill of fear rushing through him, mostly in his stomach, but Gemma was Gemma, so it was far less than if it had been anyone else. Still, the pause between Harry not talking and Gemma responding was probably short - Harry was stuck in traffic, so the tiny bit of movement didn't tell him much - but it felt like an eternity.

"Just let me know if I need to adjust anything," she said finally.

"Like what?"

"Name. Pronouns." When Harry made a surprised noise, she said, "I looked it up when I was doing the files, but I'm still likely to fuck it up."

"Probably less likely than me," Harry said, laughing. "But I don't think I'll change anything. Not any time soon, anyway."

"You can, you know."

"I don't know if I would ever talk about it publicly." Playing with other pronouns - he was fine with his name as it was - would just be too much of a bait-and-switch if he didn't want to go public.

Gemma made a humming noise. "Okay, you haven't told Nick everything. Is there a reason to tell him?"

"Besides sharing an important part of myself, you mean."

"Yeah, exactly."

"Hold on."

Traffic had finally started moving again, and Harry was turning onto a new road. Gemma was used to talking to him while he was on the road, but even though she just stopped talking, he hadn't asked for a break to focus on the road. His relationship with Nick...he couldn't entirely put it into words. Which was why he always put off Mum when she asked. If he didn't entirely know, how could Mum?

When he was down the road at a more steady clip, he said, "I don't even know if that's the right question to ask. There's just. There's something about the two of us that feels different. He's an important part of my life, no matter the definition."

Gemma laughed quietly. "I'm shaking my head at you even though you can't see."

"O...kay?"

"No, it's just...is there anything in life that can be easy or simple for you? It doesn't seem fair."

Harry hadn't really thought about it that way before. He didn't feel like things were particularly _hard_. Uncertain, maybe. Tiring, definitely. 

"I'm fine," he said finally. "And I don't need things to be easy to work out right now."

"Just don't put it off too long," Gemma said. "I know Mum wants you to wait on everything until you have a bit more breathing room, but I'm not entirely sure life works that way. Especially for you."

On the day, Harry had paused, disrupting the beat of the conversation. Harry needed time to think. He needed time to _live_.

"Okay," Harry said slowly, more in acknowledgement than in agreement. 

The conversation kept going on about other things until Harry reached his destination. He wasn't sure Gemma understood what his "okay" meant, but it didn't matter. Hearing from Gemma and Mum and Dad...they meant well, and maybe they could see things he couldn't, but it was easy to make judgement calls from the outside. He didn't know what he thought about anything, but it was his life to live.

His, and no one else's.

-

_2013_

Harry was living in Nick's pocket early in the year.

Nick knew the details of One Direction's schedule as much as Harry did, which was pretty much day-to-day and week-to-week. It was as much as they needed to know to make plans. But Nick also knew the broader parts of One Direction's schedule as much as anyone did. He knew that Harry was leaving for Europe and America and that they'd be filming their movie. Harry was proper famous, and his time was taken.

But Harry didn't talk about it. He _needed_ someone who didn't talk about it. 

And so Nick, who was paid to talk for a living, shut up, and they lived their lives together.

It was a bit embarrassing in retrospect, starting back when he started cooking for Harry the year before, going through Nick throwing Harry a birthday party, and ending when he got absolutely pissed with Harry the night of the Brits and brought him into work. Frankly, appearing at a One Direction show at the O2 was the least embarrassing thing he'd done. (The way he sniffed Harry's things backstage and was happy to get traces of his own scent ranked considerably higher on the embarrassment scale, but at least Nick was the only one present for that part.)

Harry spent one more night at Nick's before he left London for the world tour, and for the most part, it felt entirely normal. That was harder, almost. Harry would be gone for months, and who knew the person he would come back as?

But Harry got into bed with Nick - they were good enough friends that he had left the couch behind over a year ago - and Nick put his hand over Harry's. He couldn't make words happen. The part of him that used language had left him behind at the moment it had mattered most.

Harry took a sharp breath beside Nick. "Nick."

Nick laughed quietly and squeezed Harry's hand again.

It was when he went to let go that Harry squeezed back, holding Nick in place.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Harry said quietly. "My head's a mess, and it's not your problem."

Oh god. Harry had always been so much braver than Nick.

"I. I just want to know. Is there...something?"

He knew Nick so well. Say enough that Nick knew what he was asking, but leave enough that Nick could ignore it. It was the least Nick could do to not pretend it hadn't happened...but it was the most he'd ever done to acknowledge it.

Nick finally managed a nod. "You?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask." It was Harry's turn to laugh. "I don't know if there is something. But I know. I know there isn't nothing."

Nick raised their joined hands and, very gently, set his teeth around one of Harry's fingers. Harry inhaled sharply again, and the eyes he didn't raise to meet Nick's gaze were dark.

The nibble wouldn't look more than a mild, if slightly weird, gesture of affection to a regular human. Wolves would scoff at what a copout it was, since it was a deliberately chaste echo of the biting that often happened when wolves fucked. But maybe, to two men who didn't seem to fit either category, it was the perfect gesture. Nick would cling to it embarrassingly hard in the months to come, and he knew it the moment it happened.

And then, just like that, the moment was over.

"Good night," Harry said as Nick slid his hand out of Harry's. Nick had to break away first, or it would hurt too much.

Harry turned off the light and turned over. Nick stayed sitting up for a while.

When Harry was snoring - he really could sleep anywhere at any time - Nick whispered, "Good night."


	4. Chapter 4

_2015_

Considering the impending hiatus - "Sabbatical!" a voice that was an odd mix of Liam's and Nick's voices crowed in Harry's head - was so close, the last few appearances felt longer than anything Harry had ever done before. Their carefully decided responses...if Harry wasn't so professional, he would have answered them all for the others. "We're taking time to reflect on all the thing we've accomplished. That the fans have accomplished. A year. Sixteen months. A couple years. We say we're proud of all of our albums, but we were the most involved with this one." (Harry really did believe that last part, but there were only so many ways he could say it.)

Wolves, or something like them, often had more stamina than the average human. But Harry was feeling the limits of his. The others were obviously flagging, and they didn't have Harry's extra boost.

The X Factor finale wasn't their last appearance before their time off, but the second Harry saw Nick backstage, it felt like it. He hugged Nick and took in his scent. Some things had changed in the years since they'd started being friends - they'd both aged, for one, and Harry had added enough inches to his height that he was looking Nick in the eye - but Nick still smelled that delightful combination of expensive cologne and wolf.

Aimee whooped from the corner, and Harry remembered where he was. 

PR had a vested interest in supporting a narrative built out of their lives, but even so, it was eerily circular to be in the dressing room backstage. His family was there, Mum and Robin and Gemma dressed to the nines like they had been when Harry had performed at the final five years ago, but Nick's family was there as well, just as dressed up. The group could have been two human families at a formal occasion. Not enough hats on the women for a wedding, but...yes, it came to mind.

And this was all happening in the narrow halls where he had first gone when he'd left Holmes Chapel behind.

There had been meetings about it all, and phone calls from Simon, but the important phone call for Harry had been to Nick.

"I know you'll have to look to whichever of your acts makes it to the final—"

"Bite your tongue, Styles. I won't have you jinxing me."

"—but whatever tribute is planned..." Harry shivered. It would be done in that special X Factor way, which had its own sense of fun, but would probably also milk the moment far more than Harry would be comfortable with. "We're having an afterparty apart from the X Factor one. There will be a lot of alcohol. The pack would be nice."

"The pack and alcohol?" Nick hummed. "I suppose they could be tempted out for an occasion such as that."

"So you invited them to the finale already."

"Hmm? Oh, yes, that goes without saying, doesn't it?"

Harry supposed it did.

"Actually," Nick said, "this would do me a favour."

"It would?"

"You can take the family and my drunk excuses for friends while I wrap things up at the studio. Or your family can. I'm sure you'll have your own things to worry over."

Harry had smiled so hard that it hurt his face. Nick only understood Harry's life more as time passed.

"Maybe we'll end up at the party together," Harry had said. "Arriving together, I mean."

"I guess we'll see, won't we?"

And it was a good plan. But on the night itself, being in those too-familiar halls with Harry's family and Nick's family and pack...

"Is it too late to throw off the whole thing?" Harry murmured to Nick before he pulled back. "We could go back to your flat with a cheap bottle of wine."

"Trust me, I'm tempted."

They pull back with smiles on their faces, fond and completely genuine at first, melting into their public smiles after a long moment and just before they were both interrupted by other, more pressing matters.

-

Harry actually made it to the party later than Nick.

Nick might have been an X Factor judge, and Nick had his contestants to watch and worry over, but Che - and Mason, and Seann - had brought their families to the One Direction party, and they all had quite a nice time drinking and making a lot of noise. Nick, in particular, felt great about it. It wasn't that he hadn't gone out during X Factor, but the combination of letting off steam and being in the midst of so many familiar smells was just. It was perfect.

When Harry arrived, the party yelled as one. The DJ switched to What Makes You Beautiful, since all the present iteration of One Direction was officially present, and it paid off in a very put-on look from Harry. That was why Nick was laughing as he half-tackled Harry.

"You," Harry declared, "are drunk."

Nick, eyes half-lidded, nodded. "Thank fuck."

"I need to catch up. Get me a double shot. No, a triple."

"Can do."

The party wore into the night, and even with it near the beginning of winter, they only started to disperse not long before dawn. Nick and Harry stumbled to the car they were sharing together - through paparazzi, because Harry would have to disappear for a solid decade to deter them - and fell against each other as they got settled in the back, through a haze of alcohol and camera flashes. Nick hoped the others were getting out without too much fuss; that had been the idea behind the more famous ones leaving first.

"Was that what you were hoping for?" Nick asked as soon as the car had gotten away from the building. "Debauchery in the presence of everyone we know?"

Harry hummed, smiling with his eyes closed. "Don't think we were too debauched. But yes. I wanted to be well and truly pissed."

He tipped as much sideways as the seatbelt would allow, and Nick petted at Harry's hair. They had seen each other plenty in the last couple years, minus that long period when Harry had been doing the One Direction movie and world tour, but there was something about the long curls that really said how much had changed.

"I've missed you," Nick said quietly. He never would have said it sober, but he was sure Harry knew.

Harry hummed. "We have to talk."

"About?"

Harry was petting at Nick's arm without opening his eyes. "I'll tell you at home. After I drink water."

-

It had been Harry's plan to go home with Nick and talk. Eventually. It hadn't been his intention to talk _that night_ , when Harry was drunk enough that the world was distant and a bit swimmy, but Nick had blurted something that had sounded like a confession, and Nick couldn't get there first. They couldn't talk in the car.

Luckily, Nick took Harry seriously as they lurched into Nick's place. They took turns drinking water and going to the toilet to relieve themselves, and when they were sitting on Nick's couch, Harry was feeling warm and sleepy but not as pissed. Pissed enough that he was still using Nick as a pillow, but Nick had a leg across Harry's, so it seemed mutual.

"Maybe we don't have to talk tonight," Harry muttered, snuggling closer to Nick's scent.

"No." Nick waved one of his very large hands in Harry's face. "I know your break's coming, but if you have things to say..."

Time. They never had time. 

Except they almost did.

"We need to talk about you turning me into a wolf."

A moment of silence. Then Nick laughed. For a while. It didn't sound mocking. Incredulous, maybe.

"Oh my god, Styles. I never thought you would ask." He wiped tears from his eyes. "Wait, you don't want your mum to do it?"

"She..." Harry sighed. He loved his mum, and it felt like a betrayal to say this aloud, but he needed to. "She doesn't understand like you do."

Nick snuggled closer to Harry. "So what do we need to talk about? You know I will."

"I still don't know if I want it. Not entirely."

"Might never know, yeah?"

"Exactly. Mum doesn't understand that." Harry felt warm, and it wasn't entirely because of the drinking. "And other things go with it."

"Such as?"

Harry drew back, carefully resting Nick's leg away from him. Nick sat up at the motion, eyes slightly less blurry.

"Such as..." Oh god. It felt stuck in his chest. "Such as my feelings for you. And if yours are still there."

"Bold, Styles. Let me think."

"Nick." Harry couldn't joke. Not about that. "You're a gay man."

"I think that has been firmly established, yes."

"Have you noticed I wear nail polish sometimes? Women's blouses?" Harry tilted his head. "Well, they're mine, but designers make them with women in mind."

"I've noticed."

"I'm not a man." It was the plainest Harry had ever said it. It hurt a bit, but Harry realised, as he breathed it out, that it was because it was such a damn _relief_. "Not just a man. Genderqueer's the word I use in my head. The clothes...I could have been a man who wears those things, but I'm not."

Nick's confused face cleared. "Wow."

Harry laughed. He leaned forward to mess with his hair before he flipped it back out of his face. "Yeah."

"Let me see if I understand." Nick rubbed his temples for a moment. "Fuck, I'm too drunk for this. Okay. You're not sure you want to be a wolf because you want to be with me if you become a wolf, but you're not sure my gayness and your gender mesh?"

Harry nodded. "I understand if you want some time to think about it—"

"I don't need time."

Harry blinked. "You don't?"

"I'm attracted to you." Nick laughed. "God, I'm actually going to say it."

Harry held his breath.

"I want to be with you. I think...no, I know. I love you. Nothing that you've said changes that."

"But you're gay."

"I am." Nick grinned and carefully extended his leg again so it was in Harry's lap. "People aren't puzzle pieces, love. Not everything has to fit neatly."

Harry couldn't resist. He leaned forward and kissed Nick, and...

...and it felt like they'd snogged their faces off plenty of times before, is how familiar it was. Their mouths fit like they'd done it every day they'd seen each other, and they settled against each other without hesitation, Harry's hands on Nick's face, and Nick's arms wrapped around Nick.

When they pulled back, Nick said, "I'm not going to be able to stay awake much longer, love."

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but a yawn interrupted him. It pretty much got the point across.

Nick laughed. "Let's sleep. There'll be more time tomorrow."

-

Nick woke up first the next morning. No surprise. He had work, and Harry didn't, and there was no reason to think that Harry would wake up before Nick left. The bed was warm, and it wasn't remotely light outside. He snuggled in, closer to Harry. At least he had time before prep had to begin.

"What if I didn't change?"

Well. Apparently Nick _wasn't_ the first awake. "Sorry?" Nick asked, his voice still sleep rough.

Harry rolled over, looking sleepy and rumpled. It was familiar and new at the same time. Nick loved it.

"What if I asked you not to change me after all?" Harry said. "What if I stayed as I was?"

Nick huffed a laugh. "Notice how I didn't say last night that I only loved you if you were a wolf."

Instead of Harry looking relieved, his brow furrowed more. "What if I changed and you didn't want me anymore? That could happen. I mean, Gemma told me that wolves..."

Nick shook his head, and Harry fell silent. 

"That won't happen. Not unless you turn into a mass murderer when you change, and that doesn't seem likely." Nick reached out a hand. "Are you scared?"

"About?"

"Anything. Everything."

Harry laughed and took Nick's hand. His hand was warmer from the covers. "Mum and Dad...they were both born wolves, and they couldn't make it work."

"My parents are both human, and they've been together forever." Nick kissed Harry's hand. "There's so much that goes into it. 'M an old hand at long-term relationships. You can trust me."

Harry laughed again, shuffling closer until his legs were touching Nick's. Nick remembered, from the haze that was the few moments before they went to bed the night before, that Harry had stripped down completely. Not that a naked Harry in Nick's bed was strange, but the implications were a little different than they'd been before.

"You think you'll be different when you're a wolf?"

"Mum insists I will. I'll get even more settled, apparently. Wolves are more likely to mate for life, she says."

"But what do _you_ think?"

Harry looked startled and didn't answer for a moment. When words seemed to return to him, he said, "I don't know that anyone's asked me that before. Everyone I talk to is already a wolf."

"So? Doesn't change your perspective, does it?"

Harry didn't answer. He kissed Nick instead, and it felt _amazing_.

Nick very much enjoyed the moment, but he made himself pull back. "I wasn't saying it to get you to snog me," he said.

"That's why I snogged you." Harry grinned. "I'm willing to do a lot more, too."

"Oh, are you?" Nick let himself pull Harry closer.

"I reckon I need a baseline." There was a mischievous twinkle in Harry's eyes. "Need to know what orgasms with you are like now."

Nick kissed Harry again. It was all well and good to be cheeky and flirty, but...ugh, he was feeling so _sappy_. He'd also reached his limit of being honest and direct. He just didn't function that way.

They slowly snogged for a while, all tender and sweet. Lovemaking. Nick hadn't done it much in his...not insignificant sexual history, and if he had to be honest, he'd always assumed his first time with Harry would have been sparking and fierce, both of them working off the tension they'd built over years of avoiding even the question of their mutual interest. But being with Harry, feeling the warmth of his body against Nick, it made sense that it was slow and sleepy and comfortable. That was how they were together. Their lives were the busy, noisy things. Harry was Nick's oasis, and he suspected it went both ways.

Nick chuckled against Harry's mouth. "Sorry," he said, when Harry pulled back a bit. Harry didn't look offended. "I was just thinking...you're like Ibiza."

"Uh." Harry obviously didn't understand, but he seemed pleased anyway. "Thanks?"

"Ibiza," Nick snickered to himself before he went in for more kissing.

He let his hands wander a bit. It was always fun to learn a new body. Nick had a fair bit of body hair, and while Harry wasn't hairless naturally, he tended to groom. Nick had looked quite a bit, but he hadn't touched.

"What can I do for you?" Nick murmured against Harry's mouth. "What do you want?"

Harry pulled back from the kiss. He was just as attractive with his lips slightly puffy and his cheeks flushed as Nick suspected he would be. "Your mouth. Want to think about it every time I hear you on the radio."

Nick had to take a moment to feel very turned on for that one.

When he regained some composure, he kissed Harry's neck and started to move his way down, taking the liberty of sniffing all he wanted. He liked smelling whoever he slept with, but people who weren't wolves didn't understand that much. Nick didn't think it would be hard to understand how heady it was that Harry smelt of both himself and Nick, there in Nick's den, but humans were odd sometimes.

"Nick, Nick," Harry asked when Nick had been kissing at Harry's chest. "Use your teeth?"

Right. Harry was a wolf. Biting. That wasn't sexy at all.

Nick couldn't even take himself seriously in his own head. He rested his head on Harry's shoulder for a moment and groaned. Harry stroked Nick's hair.

"I'm trying to make this last," Nick said.

"I have good stamina."

"Wasn't talking about _you_ , was I?"

Harry was grinning toothily when Nick raised his head again. "I suspect I can get you worked up again before long if I have to."

"'M an old man, Styles. Don't make promises that are impossible to keep." But Nick ducked his head down to nibble at one of Harry's nipples, and Harry hummed appreciatively.

The problem was, once Nick started, he didn't really stop. There were so many biteable parts of Harry, and every time he'd look up to check that Harry was okay with it, Harry would smile with hazy eyes and say, "You could go harder." Nick didn't always make it harder, but he did do one hard test bite, and Harry cried out and his cock twitched and basically Nick felt like he would blow if he didn't move on.

"I'm going to blow you now," he said as Harry let go of the sheets. "No teeth on that one."

"Yet."

Nick's head snapped up. "Really?"

Harry's intense eyes and smile could have meant anything. Nick could read Harry well most times, but having him in Nick's bed...it was like a new language.

"Talk later," Nick decided, and Harry nodded.

Nick had seen Harry's cock plenty of times. He'd never seen Harry's cock this hard...or when Nick was so turned on from tasting Harry's skin. He was going to have Harry in his mouth. It was going to be _so_ much more intense that way.

"You okay?"

"Fine," Nick said, voice a bit squeaky. He cleared his throat. "Just think you're about to do me in, pup."

He put a hand on Harry's cock first, felt the heat and weight of it in his hand. He worked his mouth around the outside to work up moisture, slowly at first to feel Harry try not to twitch his hips. The sounds Harry made were amazing. Musical.

Nick wasn't the most coordinated man, but when he moved to take Harry fully into his mouth, he reached a hand underneath himself to grab his own cock. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so desperate. He couldn't remember the last time he gave someone a blow job and felt like he was going to come first. Actually, that had never happened before, had it?

He focused back on Harry. It was bad enough that he was about to come his brains out. He shouldn't try thinking, jerking himself off, and blowing Harry at the same time.

There was plenty to hold his attention. Harry had an arm over his face, and he was shaking in quivers that looked like a prelude to orgasm. There was the salty taste of precome in Nick's mouth, and he'd ribbed Harry about his fruit intake quite a bit - what wolf ate so many bananas? - but he really did taste sweeter than most Nick had blown. And Nick's hand on his own cock...well. Nick had given himself a lot of climaxes in his day, but even before he'd reached any peak, it was far better than anything he'd experienced before. 

"Gonna..." Harry said from above, breaking out in a very long, very loud groan. That sound alone. Lord. Everyone around was going to know Nick was making Harry come, and—

Harry _was_ coming. In Nick's mouth. He had intended to pop off and finish him off by hand, but...fuck, Nick couldn't care. He choked for a moment, swallowed when he'd recovered, and popped off when Harry had mostly finished so he could wank himself furiously. He came into his own hand a few heartbeats later, resting his head on Harry's hip as he cried out and the world around him went white.

When Nick finally came back to himself and sat up, Harry was staring at the ceiling like he couldn't see it. Going off what Nick knew of Harry and what Nick knew of sex, Harry was overwhelmed. In a good way.

Hopefully.

But he didn't want to ruin the afterglow by being fussy, so he went to the bathroom to wipe himself down - between Harry and himself, Nick was left quite a mess - and brought a flannel back for Harry. Harry was still staring at the ceiling, so Nick wiped him down and cuddled him.

He laid there for several minutes, thinking Harry had gone back to sleep, until a slightly hoarse voice said, "I didn't get to do you."

"Oh," Nick said. "Well. I expect there'll be other times."

Harry rolled over, smiling hazily. Oh yes. There would be other times.

-

Nick had work, as usual. Harry shared a shower with Nick, and when Nick kissed Harry goodbye, saying he'd back a bit later than his usual because of X Factor and because he needed to pick up Pig from Aimee's, Harry found himself climbing back in Nick's bed, starfishing on purpose to spread his scent. It was a bit presumptuous, maybe, to claim the bed as his, but presumption had probably gone out the window a long time ago.

It was so warm and cozy under there. It smelled of expensive perfume and Pig and wolf and maybe, just a little bit, Harry. He hadn't slept enough the night before, and with the warm and the scents, who could blame Harry if he closed his eyes...just for a moment...

Just for...

-

_Harry didn't know what he would do._

_The break was mostly one in name; he had plenty to keep himself busy. He flew out to Los Angeles and spent a lot of time there, both writing for other people and sitting by his pool, enjoying sun and warmth. He didn't spend as much time out there as he normally would have because while London had clouds and cold, it also had Nick, and no amount of California could make up for that._

_Of course, Nick did come for a week's holiday as well. He had been the year before, and he moved around Harry's house like he'd lived there for years. Harry had brought a couple of Nick's jumpers with him, and it had already smelt of him when he arrived._

_Maybe Harry couldn't say_ this is all yours _out loud, but he figured he'd said it in a way Nick would appreciate._

_Nick had timed the holiday for the full moon. Harry hadn't understood - he was entitled to time off for the moon that he wouldn't get if he hadn't worked that week - but Nick had said, "Haven't run a moon in America before. It's always kind of fun to do in a new country."_

_Most of America wasn't like home. There were so many open spaces, particularly in somewhere like California, that wolves only got designated spaces in bigger cities, and in ones like Los Angeles, it was popular to leave for destination holidays on the moons. Coachella was a popular location every year; the festival had been purposely scheduled during the moon in 2016, and Harry had wandered through a half-human, half-wolf crowd while music had played, feeling at ease and completely foreign all at the same time._

_Harry didn't pick a special place, though. He and Nick drove out until they found empty patches of desert, free of people parked by the side of the road, and they ran when the moon rose._

_He had been thinking, when they'd gone, that the run would be a test. If he loved it the way it was, he wouldn't ask Nick to change him. If he felt something missing, he would ask. But of course it wasn't that simple. He felt the pangs of difference at the beginning, when he could openly watch Nick change shapes and sprout fur - one of the benefits of intimacy; Harry had seen Nick change loads - and Harry stripped to his boxer briefs to run. But once they started, it was...it was what it was. Neither good nor bad. A natural state._

_They had cuddled back at home the next morning, and Harry had said, "What if I can never make a decision? Would you make it for me?"_

_Nick had laughed a dorky, nervous laugh. But he hadn't said no, either._

_He'd flown back home a couple days later. Harry had lingered a couple more days. He was originally scheduled to stay longer, but he was too restless to stay, and none of his plans were too solid to break. Mostly, he was supposed to spend time with the Azoff pack, and they were always very forgiving of his changes in plans._

_Maybe Harry had initially spent a lot of time in Los Angeles to prove Mum wrong. He could leave Nick and still love him and still live somewhere else. He felt he'd proved that conclusively. He didn't_ have _to do it anymore._

_He texted Nick just before he left for the airport, asking Nick to make a decision. They would talk it out face-to-face when Harry got back. Nick agreed, but only because they both knew the truth, the one they weren't saying aloud._

_Nick wouldn't really make the decision. Nick would say a choice like it was a decision, and Harry would react._

_Harry slept on the flight, feeling mostly rested when he came back. That was maybe the oddest part of break, that there was a way to feel mostly rested. He still hadn't landed on fully rested, but maybe "fully rested" was a myth for adults. Even wolf adults._

_He was so happy to see Nick's front door, he almost forgot to be nervous about what he was feeling. He pulled out his keys, and..._

-

The light outside had shifted when Harry opened his eyes again. He didn't open them fully. Just enough to see that it was probably not late enough for Nick to come back.

Harry still felt warm, and sleep was just there, so...

-

_Harry knew exactly what to do._

_Well, as much as he knew anything. There was always a bit of doubt about any choice, but Harry...well, he really did like his life as it was. The job was a weird job, but he got to be onstage and be surrounded by others who understood that part of his life like no other, and that was amazing. He had his family, friends. Just as important as everything else, Harry had Nick._

_And it was strange to think, considering how weird and all-over-the-place his life was, but he had money, and that meant he had security. He could choose whatever he wanted._

_He waited to tell Nick for sure until another holiday season with their parents. It was Christmas in Holmes Chapel so they could do a ceremonial Christmas stag - which Harry had always taken for granted as a child; it wasn't until Nick had gaped at pictures Harry had shown them early in their friendship that he realised Nick had never done it - and he could take his knife with Nick and Mum and Gemma in their wolf forms and celebrate the hunt. They did the New Year in Oldham, and Harry didn't like the way Nick's parents treated him sometimes, but he also felt an accord with them. They'd had a wolf dropped in their laps when they were human, and despite everything, Harry could commiserate._

_Nick's parents and siblings did a little run with Nick. They were bundled up - Harry never ran with more than a t-shirt on - and Nick was in his wolf skin, and Harry was in his bare feet. They went slow so the full humans could walk fast or jog. They tried. It wasn't everything, but it was a lot._

_That night, when they were snuggled in Nick's childhood bed, Harry told Nick what he was thinking._

_"I don't see a reason to change any of this," he said. "I am who I am no matter what I look like on the moons, or in-between."_

_"You are," Nick agreed, and they kissed until they fell asleep._

-

Harry woke to the sounds of someone rummaging in the kitchen and eager paws on the floor. He smiled to himself before he opened his eyes.

He stumbled into the bathroom and looked at his rumpled appearance. He didn't look like he did when he'd first met Nick, back when his face was still round with baby fat and his fringe was styled to cover his forehead. Harry still had the occasional breakout of acne, but he had creases he hadn't had before. He looked like a man, and a thrill shot through him. 

Never mind how long he'd been acting like an adult. Making a choice that his mum had wanted him to put off for so long? That felt properly grown-up.

He went out to Nick, who grinned from the kitchen when he spotted Harry.

"Just getting up, layabout?" He stepped forward to kiss Harry on the cheek. "My fridge is embarrassing, so I went out for food."

Harry hummed and leaned against the counter. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"I want you to change me. At the moon."

Nick paused and looked at Harry. "For sure?"

"As sure as I ever am." Harry wasn't going to admit that he'd picked the moon as a date because it gave him some time. It wasn't that he wanted to back out; he just needed time to think of his new impending reality. "And if you can't get the time this moon..."

"I can. I have." Nick grinned sheepishly. "I may have asked for the time off in advance. I was hoping we'd spend it together."

Harry went forward to hug Nick. "Are you going to miss me like this?"

"I expect I'll see you like this quite a bit." Nick nosed his way through Harry's hair. "It's not like you'll be a wolf twenty-four seven, after all."

"My scent might change."

"Probably not much."

"But if it does..."

"I'll get used to it." Nick kissed the tip of Harry's nose. "There's going to be adjustments, love. I'm sure it'll be on both sides. It would have been that way no matter what."

Nick's wolf form came to mind. Harry wondered if Nick's wolf was a reflection of the parts of Nick he didn't let everyone see, the quietly mature parts of him that only came out when he needed them.

But, Harry being Harry, said, "When did you get to be such an adult?"

"Don't worry," Nick said back. "I'll act fourteen again any minute."

-

It wasn't a bite that changed humans. Or partial humans, in Harry's case.

The December full moon was on Christmas in 2015. Harry didn't want to go north, not yet. It didn't seem fitting to do it in his mum's territory, or in Nick's hometown. He wanted to do it in the place they'd shared for years.

So they went to Primrose Hill together, hand-in-hand. The holiday and the winter moon meant it was empty. Wolves were never cold, but many put off their changes until the summer moons so there'd be less night to contend with, which Harry didn't understand. He didn't run as often as he'd like because of work, but he took advantage of every moon he was free. He suspected he'd take all the moons on the hiatus to run.

And to change.

He squeezed Nick's hand.

"No second thoughts?" Nick asked.

Harry shrugged. "Some, but mostly not."

"That's probably better than I'd be doing." Nick scrubbed his free hand through his hair. "I could be one-hundred percent certain I want to do something and doubt it until the second I do it."

"So you're doubting all this?"

Nick frowned. "Actually, no. Hmm. That's worrying."

He obviously wasn't serious, so Harry had an easy time laughing. Still, if Nick wanted an out...

"You don't have to, you know."

"Believe me, I know," Nick said wryly. "Your mum texted me to say as much."

Good lord. "I asked her to stay out of it when I told her."

"She asked me to tell you that she'll apologise when she sees you next."

What was that phrase about asking forgiveness over permission or whatever? There was no one better in the world at it than Anne Twist. Mostly because she was entirely sincere when she was sorry about something. Harry was her child, no question there.

They reached the top of the hill with the light in the sky turning blue as it went dark. Harry wondered if there should be some feeling of urgency, but there really wasn't. Nick didn't have to change when the moon rose; he just had the urge to. Harry would know the physical implications of that soon enough.

He couldn't wait.

"How's this?" Nick asked when they were close to the top.

Harry looked around. The view of London was beautiful from Primrose Hill. The buildings were starting to twinkle with lights through windows as the sky grew darker. The moon would be visible, but not the stars. The lights of the city below took their place.

This was where Harry was beginning the next part of his life.

"Perfect," he said.

"So what's next?" Nick asked, and that was right, too. Nick had had no idea what it took to change someone into a wolf before Harry had come into his life, apparently. Harry had explained it all - and despite Nick's cultivated careless air, Harry suspected Nick had done a decent amount of reading on the subject - but it was Harry, the one turning into a wolf, who was going to run the process.

"We strip down," Harry said, starting to shrug off his coat. He was starting to heat up with approaching moonrise anyway. "Can't be clothed, since we'll both be wolves when it's over."

"Sure, Styles. I know you just want to see my bod." Nick waggled his eyebrows and started on his own clothes. He wasn't wearing much, which was pretty much the only wolfish thing he ever did. Harry had seen paparazzi shots of Nick in the dead of winter wearing his cutoff shorts and a shirt outside and nothing else. But then, sometimes he wore scarves in the summer as well, so maybe that wasn't the wolf part. Maybe that was just Nick.

Harry wasn't one to be self-conscious about being nude, but he hadn't done it outside in public since growing up and moving to more populated places. And there was that whole highly-recognised business. Harry had tipped off his security about his activities that night, and he'd probably have to for the foreseeable future.

So he was looking over his shoulder a bit when he sat crosslegged on the grass across from a just-as-nude Nick. Nick got papped, but he hadn't made the papers naked yet. Maybe that was just levels of fame.

"Do we hold hands now?" Nick asked, holding his hands out, palms up.

Harry grinned. "Don't remember that as part of it." He rested his hands atop Nick's, though. He liked how ceremonial it felt.

"But it's really just a kiss?"

"A kiss with magical intent," Harry said, in his imparting-knowledge voice. It was actually Gemma's voice that he was mimicking, but he tended to do that even if he wasn't taking the piss. "You kiss some part of me while you feel the wolf and send some of it my way."

"Part of you."

"Lips would work. Or forehead." If Mum had done it, he suspected she would have made him sit while she stood and kissed the top of his head, so she could feel like he was her pup again. Mum wouldn't have been jokingly leering at Harry while they were resting their hands together. "If you wanted to blow me, we could have done this at yours."

Nick gasped. "I'm astonished you would think that of me."

They both gasped a moment later, but for real. The moon had risen. Harry wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but it seemed like he could feel the magic dancing across Nick's skin where they were touching.

"Okay," Nick said. "Ready?"

Harry nodded.

Nick leaned forward. "Don't mind if I snog your face a bit until I figure it out, do you?"

"Twist my arm," Harry murmured just before their lips touched.

When Harry pictured that night before it happened, he expected he would cling to those last moments as a skin almost desperately. Not because he wanted to keep it, not really, but because it was an experience he wouldn't entirely value until it was almost gone. He had been hyper aware of the way he experienced life those last few days, so it made sense that it would peak at the end.

But that wasn't what happened at all.

What happened was that Nick kissed Harry, and Harry felt the kiss through his body like he had their first kiss. It wasn't because of magic; Nick had been right about needing time to figure out just how to harness his power. They were kissing, and Harry forgot he was naked and outside and about to do something he'd been wanting to do his entire life. The impending change was a part of him, and a big part, but so was Nick. If Harry hadn't been busy being so incredibly fond of Nick, he might have been grateful that Nick was there for it.

Harry did notice the moment Nick found his power, but it wasn't because there was a change in intensity. It just...felt a little different. But then he sank into a kind of haze with it, and then...

And then they were running.

-

Nick hadn't given Harry post-change much thought. His mind had glanced off the concept every time he'd come across it. It wasn't until it had happened, and he'd seen the glorious brown-and-white wolf that Harry had become...no, Nick as a wolf had accepted it, actually. Of course that was how Harry had looked. It was the image that Nick had always seen without knowing.

It was after, when Harry dressed in the early-morning light and stood staring at the land around him, that it hit Nick. He'd expected Harry to act more like the wolves he'd seen before without thinking about it. 

But Harry...he'd always been the wolf, really.

Harry noticed Nick watching him after a moment and smiled at him. "What? Are you sniffing me?"

He knew Nick wasn't, but Nick took it for the invitation it was and inhaled deeply. Harry did smell a bit different. Not unfamiliar, but Nick wondered if that would mean his new scent would actually take more getting used to than something completely new.

"Do I smell of roses?" Harry posed a bit, an exaggerated, slightly mocking version of a model's posture for a magazine advert. He wobbled, which wasn't surprising, but there was slightly more grace to it than usual. Nick wasn't sure if it was the wolf or that he was on break, which always meant more exercise and better balance.

Nick mimed the action of sniffing. "Should bottle it. Maybe One Direction could put out another fragrance."

"'Just Me'," Harry said, voice airy. "You know, after that one lyric."

"Can't say I know it." Nick had heard the album before the rest of the world, but he didn't have every lyric emblazoned on his brain.

"I didn't actually write on it, 'End of the Day'." Harry swept a hand to the sky and sang. "'Just me, her, and the moon.' Do you think they were making a statement?"

"Should have been 'me, Nick, and the moon'." Nick sang the line, and Harry, as usual, did him the honour of not wincing at his singing voice. There were many reasons Nick loved him. "Right, are you in for some breakfast? Could eat a whole deer, I think, and you should get some protein."

Harry hummed. "Race you?"

They were less graceful stumbling down the hill in their human bodies, but it was much easier for Nick to laugh out loud that way, so it seemed a fair trade-off.

-

The run had been everything Harry had imagined.

Actually, it had been more. Harry had pictured running on Primrose Hill, but on human fours. There had been no way of knowing how a new body would feel. It had been smoother than he'd expected, more natural. Maybe more natural than his human form, although he was so buzzy with Nick's magic and the moon that he couldn't trust all of what he'd felt.

It was changing back that had felt...well, not wrong exactly. He and Nick went to breakfast and held hands while they ate, and Harry was distracted for a while as he basically ate the restaurant out of all of their cooked meats. (That part actually felt very familiar. That was what had happened to him when running during puberty.) But he felt something off again when he came out of it, and it wasn't helped by his newly heightened senses.

Going back to Nick's did help a bit. They'd picked up Pig, who had sniffed Harry curiously on the walk back, and Nick was letting her out back when Harry asked, "Do you mind if I..."

"Oh! 'Course not. Should probably introduce Pig to your shaggier side anyway."

Harry smiled. He was feeling a bit buzzy again, knowing he was going to do his first non-moon change. How often had he seen Gemma pop into her wolf when she wanted a nap or a quiet moment, or Mum when she was sniffing out some odd scent in the house? It was Harry's turn for the same.

Nick stepped outside as Harry shed his clothes. Harry could hear him talking to Pig in a happy voice.

Before Nick had changed Harry, Harry had asked both Mum and Gemma how they accessed the wolf away from the full moon. Gemma had given Harry an intricate answer, detailing how her mental state and the surrounding world changed her approach, and Harry had taken extensive notes. Gemma always had that effect on him, even though she wasn't in school anymore. Mum had given him the simpler version, almost point-for-point the same as Gemma's.

But Nick's answer, which he'd given on the walk back from the full moon, had been the simplest of all.

"How do you change without the moon?" Harry had asked.

Nick had shrugged. "How do you get in touch with your wolf without the moon? Same thing."

Harry had never known that more, standing naked in Nick's living room. He paid attention to his sharpened senses and felt the edges of the wolf like he always had. It was a bit more intense than when he'd been a skin, but far less intense than the change at the moon. It was more of a relax into it than the surrender it was at runs.

He changed.

When Nick came back in, Harry was sitting nicely next to the sofa. Nick smelt _amazing_ , like all the familiar and happy things in Harry's life rolled into one smell. Pig's smell was also interesting, though, and he exchanged a happy greeting with her.

"Oh, good. Won't have to chuck you out, pup." Nick gave Harry's head a nice pat. "Can't have you disagreeing with the mistress of the house, after all."

Harry held his breath, and he changed back.

"That was fast," Nick said.

"Can't banter with you as a wolf."

"No, but you can..." Nick yawned, covering his mouth. "Sorry. You can nap with me as a wolf, but I suppose there's less fur this way."

Harry walked over and kissed Nick. It wasn't an inviting kiss. More of a thank you.

Nick smiled at him. "You all right, then? Not regretting it?"

"Absolutely not." If something was off...well, Harry would figure it out. There was time. "Let's nap."

-

By the time Nick celebrated Harry's birthday with him, Harry seemed more relaxed. Nick couldn't read his mind or anything, but Harry had spent a lot of time with Nick over the past month, and the nervous edge that had been around Harry the first week or so had mellowed somewhat. It hadn't disappeared entirely, but Harry seemed better.

They went out early, nearly mid-January. Harry had plans in California through his actual birthday, and Nick had plenty of work gigs. One Direction's break didn't change their lives too dramatically. Neither had the fact that Harry and Nick could sleep in an actual puppy pile.

Well, not actual puppies. They were both grown wolves.

The nineteenth of January was a night that Nick could have worked on, but it gave him some tickle of delight to tell his coworkers that he was leaving the work outing early to celebrate his _boyfriend_ 's birthday. It gave Nick just as much delight to show up at the restaurant and give a hug and a kiss to said boyfriend, who looked thrilled that he was there.

"Twenty-two," Nick said when the cake was on the table, and he had his phone ready to capture the moment for Instagram. "What do you want to do now that you've gained another year of your life, Harold?"

The look that Harry gave Nick through the camera told Harry pretty much everything he needed to know.

But Nick considered Harry and the edge of uncertainty and his age that Nick didn't really understand for the rest of dinner. Could Nick have done what Harry had done at twenty-two? He'd had a major upheaval before he'd even turned eighteen, and then, not that many years later, he'd done it again, deliberately. Any similarities Nick had done were on a smaller scale, and they'd still felt _huge_. Terrifying.

The world wasn't so scary for Nick anymore, at his advanced age.

"What are you thinking about?" Harry asked as they hovered at coat check at the end of dinner.

"You," Nick said honestly. He sounded mushy. He knew he did. "How brave you are."

Luckily, judging by the sweetness of Harry's kiss, Harry liked mushy.

-

Harry had had many temporary farewells with Nick before. He'd never had one that had involved sex, though. Or after he wasn't a skin anymore.

Nick had been staring fondly at Harry all night. It was one of Harry's favourite things about Nick, that he had a special face for Harry that was all his own. Maybe it was strange that Harry liked that he didn't see it all the time; it made coming back to London that much better. Actually, forget London. It made something as small as a texted picture of That Look downright precious to Harry.

So, when they left the restaurant where Nick had been gazing fondly at Harry and made it back to Nick's, Harry basically pounced on Nick.

"Wait," Nick said as he hurriedly dispatched his clothes. "We had years of tension that ended in us making slow, passionate love."

Harry liked the sound of that. He stripped off his own shirt and bit Nick's lip while kissing him. Nick groaned in a way that sounded like he was trying to be annoyed, but he was too turned on to manage it.

"But I spend all night thinking romantically at you, and you want a dirty shag?"

Harry also liked the sound of that. "Sure."

Nick looked pleased, but like he didn't want to let Harry know it. Harry decided to let him off the hook by stripping the rest of his clothes off and sending Nick into the bedroom.

They'd shagged more than a few times since Harry had turned into a wolf. Harry's involvement was wildly inconsistent, though. Sometimes, he seemed to have a never-ending boner that was only appeased by contact with Nick. Other times, his energy would magically disappear, and he'd sleep for twelve hours straight. He'd called Mum to ask about it - in more generic terms with energy levels, since boundaries were a good thing - and Mum said it was normal.

"Your body's learning its new limits," Mum had said. "Like a second puberty, in a way."

"Have you seen it a lot?"

"Fair amount. Used to be more standard practise for a human to change when marrying into a pack, so I saw it all the time as a kid." Harry had heard the smile in her voice. "The amount of in-laws who would sleep through family parties was ridiculous sometimes."

With a naked and half-hard Nick under him on Nick's bed, Harry didn't feel remotely like sleeping. It wasn't just a fluke. Harry was closing in on his second full moon, which meant more control, and he wasn't going to run with Nick. Nick was going to be half a world away.

"Why," Harry said, climbing on top of Nick, "am I leaving you again?"

"Warm California sun? Work things? Time with your mum?"

"Don't talk about my mum right now." He kissed Nick.

Harry had felt that sex with Nick, when he had been a skin, had been another way to talk. It wasn't quite the same as a full wolf. It felt more like he was...appreciating Nick. Taking him all in. Nick had been more into biting and licking than Harry had before the change, and he still was, but Harry understood it now. Harry was more into smelling and feeling than Nick, probably. He liked rubbing the side of his face against Nick's. Smelling his hair.

He pushed Nick gently back into the bed before lining their cocks up and working his hips against Nick's. He liked looking at Nick. He liked it when Nick had his hands in Harry's hair...which reminded him. He guided a hand of Nick's up, hummed at the feeling of his hand in his hair, and deliberately pulled against him to get a bit of a zing. His cock jumped, and Harry worked his hips faster.

Nick pulled out of their kiss. "Fancy a finger?"

"Can you reach the lube?"

"Um. Maybe." He put his free hand on Harry's hip to still him before reaching toward the bedside table. He was just close enough that it wasn't a catastrophe. They'd broken two lamps in their first month shagging - Harry had only been one of them, and he had the excuse of relearning his body - so Harry knew victories when they happened.

And he reaped the rewards. Nick slicked his fingers and rubbed Harry's hole. Harry always liked a little action there, but the intensity of Harry's wanting meant that it felt especially good that night. His eyes rolled in the back of his head.

"Give us a hand?" Nick asked, gesturing toward their hips.

They ended up lying on their sides, facing each other. Harry had one leg hooked over Nick's hip. It was as adventurous as they'd gotten in their positions so far, which reminded Harry just how much territory they had to play around in. It made him feel better, knowing that he and Nick would have that to discover together.

Nick eased in a second finger, which was as much as Harry needed that particular night. Harry had been wanking them both together, helped by the addition of lube, but at that point, he focused on Nick, switching between a tight, quick grip and a looser one when Nick started rolling his hips into Harry's hand. Nick was just as much of a tease, easing his fingers in and out even when Harry growled a little under his breath, and then speeding up again when Harry was focused on Nick's cock.

"We'll..." Harry gasped as he felt the drag of Nick's fingers out. "We'll never get anywhere this way."

"Person who comes first cleans up?"

Nick had no chance. Harry switched his grip to the exact one he knew would make Nick come the fastest: more fast than tight, with an occasional thumbing of the head of Nick's cock. (That was one of Harry's favourite moves on his own cock. He suspected Nick liked that Harry liked it, since he hadn't been particularly responsive to it until Harry had jerked off so Nick could watch.)

"Sure," Harry said, as cheerful as he could manage.

But Nick had dirty tricks of his own. He took his free hand - lord, but Nick had such lovely, long fingers - and dragged a knuckle lightly against Harry's cock while easing his fingers deep inside Harry.

Harry's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he let it happen, coming with a loud cry. There were worse things than losing.

When he came down, he had come on his hand that wasn't his, and Nick was laughing.

"Who was first?" Harry asked. "Did you see?"

"I honestly didn't!"

Harry snorted and shook his head. "I'm going to miss you a lot."

"Yeah," Nick said, patting Harry's leg. "Me too."

-

It was laughable to compare Los Angeles's clouds and rain to London's, but it was winter, so there was a bit the first day he arrived. The morning after, there was fog.

The next day, Mum and Robin arrived, and it was as clear as ever.

Just hugging Mum told Harry he was right to invite her. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so happy to see her. He hadn't made it north in the last month, but Mum had visited Harry in London, and it had been wonderful but not quite what he needed. It wasn't until Mum arrived in Harry's house in Los Angeles that he realized that he'd needed her at all.

"So," she asked after she and Robin had settled in and Harry had gotten her a glass of wine, "do I get to see?"

Harry ducked his head a bit. "Can we wait until the moon?"

"Of course, love."

The moon was the very next night, so there wasn't long to wait. Still, he Facetimed Nick that afternoon, leaving Mum and Robin to enjoy the sun by the pool and moving inside so he could have some privacy.

It was night back in London, and Nick looked very cozy in his bed. Their bed, really. The duvet was pulled up to his head, and his eyes looked heavy. Harry envied him.

"I think I figured it out," Harry said. "I need to run with Mum. I mean, I knew I did..."

"But this is what was bothering you."

Harry blinked. "You noticed?"

"I don't know if you've been paying attention, but you're kind of important, pup." He gave Harry That Look. He didn't even shake it off before he asked, "She made it in okay?"

Harry nodded, grinning back. "I felt better just hugging her. I'm not sure why it didn't work in London."

"You didn't bring her back to yours when she visited." Nick shrugged. "Wolves get weird about territory sometimes."

"This is barely my territory anymore. You're not here enough."

"Well, I'm coming out that way for Coachella. Plenty of time to stink it up."

Harry laughed. "I miss you. Call me at lunch tomorrow?"

"You'll be awake?"

"Mum and I probably won't run that much tomorrow night. We never do."

Of course, it was one thing to say that, based on the way he'd run with his Mum as a kid. It had been similar when he'd run with her on holidays as an adult, but then, Harry has basically been sleep deprived since he was sixteen. At twenty-two, with a good month's rest and an adjusted wolf body, he met Mum at the car the afternoon before the moon feeling like lightning was dancing through his veins.

They went early enough that they missed the worst of rush hour traffic. Harry knew some quieter places not too far from Los Angeles itself. It wasn't like Las Vegas, where the city appeared out of nothing; they had to drive a bit to reach nothing. But it was there. It was like the dream he'd had months before, actually, with the brush. He'd been running Nick instead.

He and Mum didn't talk much. She seemed a bit tired from the flight still, and all Harry could think was _Will you see me?_

Maybe he was muttering it aloud because, at one point, Mum said, "You've grown into a wonderful person, Harry. I'm so proud of you."

Person. Mum was deliberate with her words. "Wolf" didn't have quite the same gender-neutral feeling that "person" did. Harry had told Gemma she could talk to Mum about his gender as it stood - she would probably describe it better, and questions probably wouldn't sting as much - and apparently, she had.

It felt almost secondary when they were out in the desert, and they changed into their respective wolf forms. But it was important, too. Mum's muzzle was starting to streak with grey; Harry hadn't seen that yet. She still brushed at her fur a bit with her nose after the change finished, making sure it was all in place, so that was the same. But the way Harry saw her, on her level, was completely new.

They ran, and they rested.

It was when they were lying against each other, drifting to sleep like Harry had always wanted, mum and pup, that Harry felt the last of his tension go. Finally.


End file.
